





f BY 2063) .R67°1925.._, 
Rowland, Henry Hosie, 1884- 
Native churches in foreign 





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ENE Career 
“SE&Y OF PRit Ass 
Aan OF PRINCES 
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rere 
Native Churc 
in Foreign Fields 


By 
HENRY HOSIE 
"ROWLAND 


_ THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 





Copyright, 1925, by 
HENRY HOSIE ROWLAND 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


To 


MY FATHER 
AND 


MY MOTHER 


hay 


LP ce! 
» 


io i i”, 





noe 


He CO 


12 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 
PAGE 
. Not as the goal but as the means.............. 15 
. Self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending 
—the three features commonly accepted....... 16 
. With a culture that is native yet Christian also.. 19 
. A religion adapted to national needs............ 19 
(a) Socially. 


(b) Industrially. 
(ce) In esthetics. 
(1) Architecture. 
(2) Musical harmony. 
(3) Ritual. 
(d) In philosophy. 
(e) In church discipline. 
(f) In customs. 


(a) Before it is self-supporting? 
(b) While the missionary is still on the field? 
(c) When the church makes the decisions? 


. The deeper, spiritual quality of the truly in- 


UIPOrOe | GET eN s ok e-e 2e k el ees Ue 29 
(a) Filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore 
(1) United. 
(2) With missionary zeal. 


. “Indigenous” does not make impossible interna- 


tional federation or union................ 31 


CHAPTER II 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


. The Christian, democratic point of view demands it 32 
. “Christian” nations and Christianity not identical. 


5 


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CONTENTS 


. The innate difference of different peoples........ 35 
. Different emphases in different forms of society 
have led to different interpretations of 


Christiantty ooo ei neath: nits eeelae tie ontee e 35 

. The same right of adaptation is due the new 
churches 73) (OS Y a at ote ee tree 37 

The best type of Christianity is dependent upon 
freedom 3! <.y 52 celles rite ee ee ele nei 37 

There is a demand for an indigenous church on 
the’fields 2) iF) 02 4ia ahs ae Si 39 


(a) Some churches have become independent. 

(b) The spirit of the leaders in the movement for 
indigenous churches is often praiseworthy. 

(c) Results prove the value of the movement. 

(d) There has come through the movement a wel- 
come change in the attitude of the nationals. 

. Christianity may be more easily understood in the 


East than in the West.....0...-0 00.0035 44 
. The answer in the development of the Church... 44 
CHAPTER ITI 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 
1. From THE APOSTLES TO CONSTANTINE...... 46 
. Unfavorable and favorable conditions met....... 46 
. Features of the early church................... 49 


(a) Simplicity. 

(b) Autonomy. 

(c) Self-support. 

(d) Development into a close organization. 
(e) Literature. 

(f) Heathen survivals. 

(g) The change to externalism. 


The achievement) 420/00 eee a ee 54 
Comparison with the present.................. 55 
2. From ConsTANTINE TO CAREY............ 56 

- The rige of monasticism fios2 it, ee ee ae 56 


(a) The condition of the church that caused it. 
(b) The come-back of the monks. 


6 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 
(c) Their great task. 
(d) The conditions which they faced. 
. The evangelizing of the North................. 58 


(a) Methods used. 
(b) The work of the monks. 
(c) Were the resulting church organizations in- 
digenous? 
(1) Self-support. 
(2) Autonomy. 
(3) Adaptation to heathenism. 
(4) Literature. 
Summary—the loss of indigenous character 
and Christianity too. 


. Roman Catholic Missions in the East and in 


A MErieay estore a wat Acca eat tee a a 64 
Protestant eres 360 oak aos se Me Se ia 67 
The Nestoriansiteiacts niet ce wae han ees 68 
SUOMI ALY. Glee ee ae Bete ar ee REG MER ahs te oT 68 

8. From CarREY TO THE EpINBURGH Conrer- 
RIN CSR ana id Aine NATO UAT GRAD. Yanl 08 Bis A poRL a Ds 69 
. Comparisons of periods 1, 2, and 3............. 69 
. Conditions met by the missionary.............. 70 


(a) Favorable. 
(b) Unfavorable. 


. Developing indigenous churches. ............... 73 


(a) The ideal set forth. 
(b) The ideal at work in 
(1) India. 
(2) Burma. 
(3) Africa. 
(4) Madagascar. 
(5) The islands of the sea. 
(6) Korea. 


(9) The Near East. 
(10) Other fields. 
(c) The ideal as carried out by societies. 
(d) The attitude of converts. 
(e) The influence of strong personalities. 
(f) Summary. 


7 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
4. From tHE Epinsurcu CONFERENCE TO THE 
PRI COTY Pinan hak con eaten en 
1. The significance of the Edinburgh Conference.... 89 
2. The working out of the principles laid down 
Fed PUNE I OPE ON Fi ara ABH has Aue ts 92 
(a) Comity. 
(hh): Union: eflottes|. 6c. gWiews innate were an 94 
(1) Japan 


(2) Formosa and Chosen. 
(3) The canna st 


(6) Africa and Madagascar. 
(7) Latin America. 
(c) The development of self-consciousness....... - 100 
(1) Self-support. 
a. Advance in giving. 
b. Hindrances to self-support. 
1. Higher education. 
2. Rising standards and prices. 
c. Methods of different societies. 
(2) specunenst a eR it el pr PART Ne ome age 104 


1. American Methodist. 
2. Anglican. 
8. Presbyterian bodies. 
4. Congregational bodies. 
5. India in general. 
China. | 
Japan. 
. Philippines. | 
. Chosen. 
Latin America. 
. Africa. 
. Summary. 
(3) Evan elim bi ncce kkk hall ike See ak ee Oa 113 
(4) New dimphases. |. 6 oS, necks cos wees ye ee 116 

a. Social activity. 

b. Education. 

c. Other features. 





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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER IV 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


PAGE 
Ly LCPRD DUCTION. GO. lo ade ck te tue cae sed 120 

Factors which condition the work of missions. 
A. Those External to the Church............ 120 


. The scientific spirit among the educated classes 
makes an unprecedented situation for the 
Christian Church to meet ............... 120 

. The rise of the spirit.of democracy and national- 

ism makes necessary a new approach......... 123 

. The changing industrial situation requires a new 
Bbiatideiccce. © dees teres o etek onde eae 124 

. Poverty, ignorance and fatalism of the millions.. 125 

Sek 16) tate ATL MUTI ETE Sc sks es Cs acd bs ee eats 126 

B. Factors Present in the Church in the Way 
Of Achrevementa' oo. ete AP Soa et" 126 
. The great unlearned multitudes that have come 
WEN Bo tiehe rth ead Cahn lc ee GPO eer ara Uae Waele a late es 126 
. The educated few eager to take control......... 127 
. Great educational and other institutions to be 
WORE Tire cro PE face uh eine aie b ee eG 128 
. The desire of many for union.................. 129 
2. PROBLEMS 
As OU SUD DOTES eis | MeL Dae aattaase os 130 
Why is self-support essential?.................. 130 
Uh dialect elo Phegieh gel eat cur Maly aR eae Ad ha UL aOR AR 131 


(a) Financing the work of the church the task of 
the church. 
(b) 1. Mostly done by the missionary. 
2. Drastic action disastrous. 
3. The Grant-in-aid method. 
4. Salary schedules. 
(c) Workers should be responsible to the church, 
not to the missionary. 


Med PUSEHULIOS see ee on hick okt rane ee A tm 135 


(a) The economic situation on some fields. 
(b) Well educated workers and poor churches. 
(c) The lack of training in giving. 

9 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 
(d) Big plants that entail a large budget for up- 
keep. 
(e) Increasing costs of maintenance. 


. Aids in cultivating self-support................. 142 
>.Drvisions of self-stppportsy Us ects ae veloute E 143 


(a) The unit of support. Individual church or 
group of churches? 
(b) The content of self-support. 
1. Support the missionary? 
2. Only the pastor? 
3. Other evangelistic work as well? 
4. The order of items? 


. Indigenous consciousness the true basis of self- 


SUPPORE's Vili acaie oie le acute tata ale eh eee res 146 


By Leadership oii Geet thee ce ee 147 


. The importance of leadership.................. 147 
“Education of leaders 20 eave.) tat eaaer a cater te 147 
a. Education necessary. 
b. Different degrees of education for paid workers. 
ce. Training lay workers. 
d. Educating the church membership. 
e. Theological School curriculum. 


. The leaders should be responsible to the church, 


not to the amussionaryes. ects ok okie ete 151 
a. Difficulties. 
(1) Dislike of being subordinated to foreigner. 
(2) Fear of conservative church members. 
(3) The difficulty in lands of little culture. 
(4) Racial feeling. 
b. The solution of the problem in brotherhood. 
. The dependence of the church on leadership. ... 156 


C.. Self-government (aires Sune Sar. ian 157 


1,\As-yet. largely unattained .).2 [05021 9. eee 157 
2. Stages in the process of devolution............. 158 
3. The various ways of devolution............... 158 


a. The item-by-item method. 

b. The local-to-general method. 

c. Method of increasing the number of ordained 
men. 


10 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


4. The relation of self-support to self-government... 162 
5. Shall nationals be allowed to handle foreign 
LSE ond) Ae d Btae e ¢ ore ls eel a oat 164 
6. Ability at self-government to be found by test- 
Ng PIAS rea Pe ae eile es ee ars 166 
7. The deaieh should be trained from the start... 167 
8. When grant self-government?................. 168 
9. When shall the missionary and the mission board 
POLICE A EVI ce NAG Site er caie ee cals 169 
10. In the solution Christian brotherhood is more 
vital than the machinery of organization... 170 
D. Denominationalism and the Tendency To- 
ard CHIR a ete oe eee es 171 
1. The growth of the spirit of union............... 171 
2. The question on the field, Why a divided Chris- 
RIBDIUY Fotis ote Sts Vee a ate 8 1S otal ves 172 
3. Union movements on the field.................. 172 
4. The growing demand for union on the field...... 173 
Bee Cues ea erates ele a eek d cele das hoe, Miata 173 


a. The unwillimgness of the home constituency. 
b. Denominationalism on the field. 
c. Ecclesiastical organizations. 


d. Inertia. 


e. Doctrinal views. 


. Methods suggested for union.................-. 175 


a. By local and provincial union. 
b. By union of bodies of similar church polity. 


PAU ET DENS LOsUTMOM i Abin sak cn cael kaa serie e 176 
Behe | DODE LOD UNIO ae calc b ates a lebe tre teeieic is 176 
E. The Missionary’s Responsibility......... 177 
1. The question of the responsibility of the mis- 
sionary for the ultimate form of indigenous 
CHriIshianity:: vid tie css ARR see aatatatioL we ae 177 
2. The attitude of the national toward the problem.. 178 
3. The right attitude for the missionary........... 179 
Me ERIS CRAIC CE fee ere AML, Masa ged les lave sk ates athe bok 179 


a. To give the message. 
b. To develop leadership. 
c. To lay the responsibility upon the Church. 


11 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

F. The Responsibility of the Indigenous Church 180 

. The former status of inability. ................. 180 
. Responsibility for evangelism.................. 181 


a. A concrete example. 
b. The need for scientific thoroughness. 


. Responsibility for education and literary work.... 183 
Responsibility for hospitals, ete.............-.. 184 
« National 'respousibility,) aa an ss os ee ee 184 
. International responsibility.................... 186 
CHAPTER V 
CONCLUSION 

. Christian character is developed in social con- 
BATS. cl itlaiosg tapcistaeg mien a sk ie oe tanked ak te eae 187 
. Leadership of priceless value................... 187 
. Training leaders the first task.................. 188 
» Phe methodol traintig wa, 2s i sola eie eek 188 
A Tuthire of Dronises aout eee eee eee 189 

The indigenous character of the church of the 
fuse), c Ves ee sates arene 190 
.pA: pléa for, equality. ou i en es on erage 190 
. The hope of a Church Universal................ 191 


12 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


Out of ten years of actual effort on the mis- 
sion field in North China and a year of inten- 
sive study of the mission fields in general from 
apostolic times down to the present, the writer 
has arrived at the conclusions set forth in this 
volume. Realizing that many are to-day think- 
ing along the same line, the writer desires to 
offer this contribution to the as yet somewhat 
scanty literature on the Indigenous Church. 

Lest any take offense at the criticism of 
the work of missionaries past and present, the 
writer would say that of most of the faults 
mentioned he himself has been guilty, and 
some of the conclusions arrived at are trace- 
able to personal experience as well as to the 
evidence presented by others. Missionaries 
are not all statesmen with a far look ahead. 
Many are men of action, who in the midst of 
their work have little or no time to get out 
from under their burden sufficiently to get 
the perspective necessary for the thinking 
through of great problems. 

We are a bit hard on what is known as the 
“old convert,” but I think not unjustly. A 

13 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


fellow missionary once told me that when he 
exhorted one of these gentlemen to stop his 
bad habits or he would miss the joys of heaven, 
he replied, “If it is the will of the Lord that 
I be damned, then let the Lord’s will be done.” 
Enough said! 

The author is indebted beyond the power 
of words to express to Dr. Henry B. Robins, 
of the faculty of the Rochester Theological 
Seminary, for his generously given guidance 
in reading and his invaluable suggestions 
regarding the form in which the matters 
treated in this volume appear. Thanks are 
also due to the librarians of the Rochester 
Theological Seminary for their kindly assist- 
ance in the finding of the materials used. 

In the hope that many who are working on 
the problem of evangelizing the peoples of the 
non-Christian Jands may find the same help 
that the author has found, this little volume is 
placed before the public. It has been the 
writer’s aim to gather together the most sig- 
nificant facts bearing upon the building up of 
churches in the foreign fields and to present 
them in such fashion as will not only be in- 
forming but also use them for the future of the 
Church of Christ throughout the world. 


14 


CHAPTER I 
THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


THE aim of Jesus was to restore lost sons 
and daughters to the heavenly Father and 
thereby make one family of all who would 
receive God into their hearts as Father. The 
church, in so far as it is viewed as identical 
with this “family,” is therefore the end of 
missionary effort. But in so far as it is an 
organization for the purpose of winning men, 
women, and children to this “family” ideal, 
it is the means to the end. The inability of 
the foreign missionary alone to cope with the 
task is obvious. The best instrument the Holy 
Spirit can use to bring all the human race 
through Christ to the Father is the body of 
Christians raised up each in its own land. It 
is the purpose of this volume to follow the 
development of the organized churches in for- 
eign fields down to the present, in an effort to 
discover the best ways of building them up as 
instruments for accomplishing the aim of 
Jesus as set forth above. With this word of 
explanation we proceed to the definition of the 
indigenous church. 

15 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


As in education there are the three R’s, so 
in modern Protestant missions there have 
been three S’s, namely, self-support, self-goy- 
ernment, and self-extension or self-propaga- 
tion. These three have been for decades the 
recognized marks, as it were, on the hands, the 
head, and the feet of a really indigenous 
church: self-support, the members of the 
church with the work of their own hands sup- 
porting their church in all its activities; self- 
government, using their heads to direct their 
own affairs; and self-propagation, with their 
own feet carrying the gospel. “How beautiful 
upon the mountains,” whether the Andes or 
the Himalayas, “are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings” (Isa. 52. 7). 

Self-support means the doing away with for- 
eign grants or subsidies and the assumption 
by the local, provincial, or national churches 
of the financial burden incident to such activi- 
ties as the church carries on. It implies that 
all the money used for current expenses (1) 
of an annually recurring nature, as pastor’s 
salary, and (2) of a nonrecurring nature, such 
as the erection of a new church building, is 
raised by the church itself. If the people in 
the church really recognize the enterprise as 
their own and not as the creature of the for- 
eign missionary, they will naturally be willing 

16 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


to support it of their substance just as truly 
as a self-respecting husband and father takes 
pride and joy in contributing to the necessi- 
ties of his family and would be ashamed to 
ask another man to support his family. Self- 
support, therefore, is not merely a matter of 
paying the bills: it is that attitude of mind 
on the part of the church that is not content 
until it stands before the world in God’s 
strength without leaning on the golden staff 
of the foreign missionary. 

Self-government or autonomy means the 
government of the church by the church itself. 
In this state, viewed ideally, the seat of 
authority in all matters relating to the church 
life is no longer occupied by the foreign mis- 
sionary or by the foreign mission board. That 
this is a reasonable requirement for an indig- 
enous church is easy to see when we consider 
how restive our own youth become under par- 
ental authority and how relations in the family 
are sometimes strained when the father insists 
on obedience. How much more restive are 
peoples of strange races, especially in these 
days of increasing race and national con- 
sciousness. God has given other races the 
same craving for independence that he has 
given the European, and having this in their 
nature without satisfying it would keep Chris- 

17 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


tianity a foreign religion, whereas the satis- 
fying of this craving insures the nationalizing 
of the religion of Jesus. 

Self-extension or self-propagation means 
that the vitalizing power of the Holy Spirit is 
so present in the church that it must express 
itself in that which is natural to all true fol- 
lowers of Christ, namely, the carrying of the 
gospel. A church must have within itself the 
living heart of Christianity to do this. A dead 
or dying church has no urge within itself to 
go with the message. <A church that feels the 
message belongs to the missionary or the 
foreign-paid national agent has no interest in 
this most characteristic of all Christian work. 
Only a church that has a real fellowship with 
the Christ and is energized by the power of 
the Holy Spirit, not pushed and coaxed by 
the foreigner, accepts the challenge of the 
' unreached millions. This, then, is the third 
and the most convincing of the marks that the 
church is truly indigenous. To contribute to 
what is one’s own and to manage one’s own 
affairs, certainly are activities that do not 
go as deep into the heart life of the Christian 
as to pray for, give money for, or go to those 
outside of his own circle. 

The goals of self-support, self-government, 
and self-extension were set forth by two great 

18 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


leaders, one on each side of the Atlantic: Sec- 
retary Henry Venn, of the Church Missionary 
Society, and Secretary Anderson, of the 
American Board. In mission conferences and 
councils since their day these have been the 
goals of the endeavor of the foreign missionary 
societies. When they are attained, then it 
is recognized that the churches in the foreign 
fields have truly attained their majority. 

But there are other features in an indige- 
nous church. A culture that is native yet 
also Christian is sure to. spring up. A church 
dependent entirely upon translations for the 
cultivation of its life in Christ surely lacks in 
indigenous character. A literature of native 
production is proof that Christ has captured 
the heart and the mind; and when poetic souls 
are inspired to compose hymns in praise of 
our Lord, we have deeper reason still to feel . 
that Christianity is growing up in the heart 
and is no more. regarded as a foreign plant. 
The developing of a native literature, both 
prose and poetry, is as natural a one as the 
unfolding of the rose from the rosebud. Any 
failure to mature indicates either death or a 
counterfeit. 

In addition to literature pure and simple, 
an interpretation of Christianity that is 
adapted to the needs of the country, is another 

19 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


rightly expected fruit of an indigenous reli- 
gion. 

The structure of Western society has led us 
of the West to emphasize the individuality of 
Christianity. Among the Eastern peoples, 
where much, if not most, of our mission work 
is now conducted, the family and the clan play 
a greater part. <A very good illustration of 
the different point of view came with a shock 
to the writer on one occasion in China when 
he was examining for baptism a number of 
converts. A youth appeared among them as 
proxy for his father, who was too busy to 
come and be baptized himself! Now, baptism 
by proxy is in no danger of being adopted 
even in China, but where the social order is 
not unchristian, it must stand, or denational- 
ization, which term includes a church that is 
not indigenous, must result. Jesus, himself 
an Oriental, fits better into the social struc- 
ture we find in the mission fields of the East 
than into our Western, more individualistic 
society. 

The occupations of people and their rela- 
tions economically to one another all must be 
allowed to determine the application of reli- 
gion, For example, an agricultural people 
need a religion that is interested in the prob- 
lems of the farmer. There is great room for 

20 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


change in emphasis between countries like the 
United States of America, where over one half 
of the population live in cities, and China or 
India, where probably eighty-five to ninety-five 
per cent live in the country districts. If 
Christianity gets hold of a people, it will natu- 
rally be adapted to their industrial needs. 

Aisthetics also have their place. Gothic 
architecture in India or Japan seems out of 
place; our Western music cannot reach the 
heart of the Chinese as their own music does, 
and a ritual that is brought from over the 
seas has a foreign tinge that sets the people 
of the land against it. These matters are all 
part of the problem of the indigenous church, 
Recognizing the religious nature of all peoples, 
we may well allow the national forms to 
clothe the Christian religion as well as to 
clothe their previous religion. 

A particular style of architecture is not 
accursed because it has been used by Bud- 
dhists or Mohammedans. Architecture existed 
before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He 
advised no style of architecture. What did 
the first Christians use in their church build- 
ings in the way of architecture? They did not 
follow the synagogue style of architecture, as 
one might expect if there was to be a style 
peculiarly Christian, a model for the whole 

21 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


world never to be departed from, settled for- 
ever because Jesus himself worshiped in the 
synagogue. The first Christian edifice, erected 
at Edessa, was built upon a model of the 
Jewish temple, and this model was followed 
largely in Nestorian churches. But through- 
out the Roman Empire the Christians prob- 
ably first hired or erected plain rectangular 
buildings, such as were numerous in Roman 
towns. Later basilicas were used. These were 
buildings on the style of the Roman court 
house and exchange for commercial transac- 
tions. Wealthy Romans also had basilicas in 
their houses. Hence we see that outside of the 
Nestorian churches the style of architecture 
in the early days was not what we could call 
distinctively Christian, not even religious, but 
was distinctly adapted to what was already 
in vogue in the lands where Christianity was 
preached. The indigenous church of to-day 
would therefore have excellent reason for us- 
ing in church buildings such style of archi- 
tecture as would not provoke the comment 
that it was foreign, but such a style as would 
disarm criticism and furthermore make the 
people feel that it was really their own. That 
style, of course, would be one to which they 
are accustomed. 
One has only to live among the people of 
22 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


other countries to find out that each land or 
race prefers its own kind of music. That is 
the kind that takes them back to all the pre- 
cious memories of childhood, their environ- 
ment, the dreams of the future in which they 
indulged—in short, the woof and warp of their 
existence. Nothing can ever take away from 
them the charm of their own music. For this 
reason foreign music has a foreign sound, and 
only when the music of their hymns and their 
other sacred music is their own will they feel 
entirely at home with them. For this reason 
the character of the music should be indig- 
enous. 

Ritual too is a feature of religious life that 
cannot be disregarded. The ritual we have in 
our religion is not vital to the religion itself. 
Jesus made no provision for it. It has been 
a gradual growth through the centuries. Much 
now used and regarded as Christian came 
from heathen worship. Saint Gregory intro- 
duced even the dancing of the Apollo cult into 
religious services. It seems quite reasonable 
that a truly indigenous church will develop its 
own ritual or adapt a foreign one to such a 
form as will make it seem truly indigenous. 

Early Christianity likewise coming into con- 
tact with the then systems of philosophy, more 
or less adopted them. Jerome, stanchly Chris- 

23 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


tian, was nevertheless “fervently addicted to 
heathen literature and admired Plato and 
Cicero, the chiefs of profane philosophy.” 
Beethius, a professed Christian who lived after 
Constantine, and a man steadfast in suffering, 
in setting forth the true grounds of spiritual 
consolation on which he rested in the hour of 
trial, shows no trace of Christianity, only 
pure, unmingled naturalism. Merivale, in 
The Conversion of the Northern Nations cites 
these two instances as typical of that time. 
As it was natural in those days for Chris- 
tianity to relate itself with the philosophy 
current in those times, so it is to be expected 
that a truly indigenous Christianity will like- 
wise relate itself to the philosophy of the 
nations that are now the fields of foreign- 
mission enterprise. 

Church discipline too may be subject to 
adaptation. Although Jesus himself mingled 
with men so that they even charged him with 
being a glutton and a winebibber, many 
devoted followers of his became hermits, 
pillar saints, and other kinds of recluse. Mon- 
tanus, the founder of the Montanist heresy, 
having been a priest of Cybele in Phrygia, 
naturally brought over into his discipline 
Cybele elements, such as ecstatic manifesta- 
tions and extreme self-mortification. To-day 

24 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


there are those that say India will give us a 
_ Christian type of holy man or fakir, who, while 
not mutilating his body, will travel about in 
poverty preaching the Christian religion, and 
that, in fact, this has already begun in the 
person of the Sadhu Sunder Singh and others. 
The expression natural to the country in ques- 
tion is bound to appear when the church has 
become truly of indigenous character. 
Among all these problems one of the most 
difficult before ‘the missionary has been what 
to do with native customs. Some have tried 
to substitute a purely Western form, thinking 
that it was Christian because it came from a 
more Christian land than the land to which 
they had come. Others have attempted to con- 
serve what was not distinctly opposed to 
Christianity ; for example, they would have to 
exclude from the Chinese wedding ceremony 
the worshiping of heaven and earth. But the 
ceremony might still be kept with the Creator 
of heaven and earth as the object of worship. 
No one would hold that our present cere- 
monies of marriage or usages at funerals and 
festivals and our other customs are those laid 
down by Jesus. The origin of many customs 
is very obscure. Very few Christians know 
how Saint Nicholas burst into the Christmas 
festivities and robbed Jesus of his rightful 
25 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


preeminence. In the same way very few 
Chinese can account for the origin of the fes- 
tival of the Eighth Moon. The consideration 
of such facts fosters humility in the attitude 
of Westerners. Why not expect the people of 
other lands also to retain their customs, fes- 
tivals, etc., even in their church life, altering 
them only so far as they need it to make them 
Christian? For an indigenous church to do 
otherwise would be to become foreign and 
open to the charge of denationalizing its mem- 
bers. Customs are not Christian simply 
because they are Western. It is as simple and 
as reasonable that, as our ancestors put a 
Christian content into already existing cus- 
toms, so shall the converts of India, Africa, 
and other lands do with their customs. 

To illustrate, let us take a concrete case of 
fundamental type. A church that disregards, 
as too often has been done in the past, the ele- 
ments of filial piety in ancestor worship, which 
is the most prominent feature in the religious 
life of the East, throws away a priceless asset 
of those peoples. Of course the burning of 
incense and prostration in worship before the 
ancestral tablets would seem to be steps away 
from Christianity ; but the preservation of the 
tablets and the holding of memorial services, 
or the employment of some other method of 

26 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


showing respect for the memory, and some 
form of rite at the grave, would seem to be 
essential to the preservation of the inner life 
so long fostered and of such obvious value to 
the younger generation. If this is altered— 
as, indeed, it can be—there is no valid reason 
why almost all customs cannot be Christian- 
ized, instead of being thrown overboard 
entirely and usurped by purely Western ones. 

When may a church be characterized as 
indigenous? This is a proper question to ask 
at the conclusion of this sketch of the various 
implications underlying the idea of the indige- 
nous church. Must a church have all these 
- qualifications before it may be truly classed 
as indigenous? Or is there a time when it 
has passed over from the rating of a foreign 
enterprise into the indigenous column, even 
though it has not yet produced all the fruits 
an indigenous plant is expected to produce? 
Some of these fruits, for example, philosophy 
and literature, require generations to produce. 

So much has been said about self-support 
that the question arises: May the church then 
be called indigenous when it supports itself? 
And, may it ever be indigenous before it is 
self-supporting? Now, there are on the field 
churches that are self-supporting, as the 
Samoan Church, but they are unable as yet to 


27 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


do without the missionary. Financial ability, 
then, may be present, but the ability to develop 
a well-rounded Christianity does not arise 
alone out of the possession and the generous 
use of money. On the other hand, there are 
churches whose economic situation is a prob- 
lem, as in the Telugu country, but which have 
developed capable men to manage their affairs, 
If it is only money that they need, can they 
not be called as truly indigenous as a weak 
Presbyterian or Methodist church on the home 
mission field? Self-support, then, is not the 
sole criterion. Its attainment does not neces- 
sarily imply indigenous character, and only 
partial attainment does not necessarily dis- 
qualify a church. 

Another question that naturally arises is: 
While the missicnary is still on the field is the 
chureh indigenous? Does even his presence, 
though only as an adviser, hinder the church 
from being called indigenous? The presence 
of French instructors in the American army 
in the European War was never thought of 
as denationalizing the army. They had no 
control over the War Department. Even so, 
the church may be indigenous and yet have 
the missionary. To decide otherwise would be 
to go against a very strong body of opinion in 
the foreign lands, particularly Japan, where 

28 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


the missionary still is working, but where the 
churches have shown so many qualities of an 
indigenous nature that it would be an injus- 
tice to deny their indigenous character. 

When shall a church be considered indige- 
nous? Must it pass one hundred per cent 
on the tests already suggested? We have 
already hinted that this is not necessary. Mr. 
J. H. Oldham, in his address at the National 
Christian Conference in Shanghai, China, in 
May, 1922, put the issue clearly when he 
answered the question, “When does Chris- 
tianity become truly national in its expres- 
sion?” with these words, “when the main direc- 
tion and control of the Christian movement is 
in the hands of the people of the country— 
when they make the decisions.” That is the 
turning point. It implies that the church has 
accepted Christianity not on trial, but as its 
own for good or ill. It is committed to it, 
heart and soul. 

Besides the goals of self-support, self-gov- 
ernment, and self-propagation, besides an 
indigenous culture and an interpretation of 
Christianity that is adapted to the needs of a 
country, there is a deeper, spiritual quality 
that is essential to the development of indige- 
nous Christianity. This quality, in fact, 
underlies and in natural course works through 

29 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


all these external features, just as the spirit 
of a man shows through the activity of his 
body. This is none other than the presence of 
the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, ener- 
gizing and leading to ultimate victory over 
the forces of evil. 

This indigenous force, present in all the fol- 
lowers of Jesus, a force that is indigenous to 
all the human race, when. actually possessed 
of his Spirit, shows itself in two ways that 
have a deep mutual interrelation. The first 
of these is a desire to unite with all other fol- 
lowers of Jesus. The second is the baptism of 
the missionary spirit, already mentioned under 
“self-propagation.” The plea of Jesus by act 
and word for union and his charge to his dis- 
ciples in word and in the implication of his 
life and his teaching leave us no room to doubt 
that a united body of believers with the mis- 
sionary spirit was the great prayer of his 
heart. That the mission fields to-day present 
to us these features so strikingly (1) in the 
many union and federation movements and 
(2) in the missionary zeal not only as evi- 
denced by the support on the part of the home 
churches of over twenty thousand missionaries 
abroad, but also in the evangelistic zeal of the 
people newly won to Christ, indicates that 
Christianity is firmly grounded and also gives 

30 


THE INDIGENOUS CHURCH DEFINED 


rise to the glorious hope that some day we 
shall see a mighty, united church, actually 
accomplishing the work that Jesus sent his 
followers forth to do. 

This brings us to the question of whether 
an indigenous church in China, or one in 
India, or one in other lands, or several in any 
one land, interferes with an international fed- 
eration or union. The answer to this question 
is that the indigenous character of the church 
in the different lands is merely the adapta- 
tion of Christianity to those peoples, and that 
an international bond of union would in no 
way interfere with the indigenous character of 
the churches. There is enough in common in 
human nature, particularly when it is conse- 
crated to God and baptized by the Holy Spirit, 
to unite us all in Christian fellowship. That 
is to say, that by “indigenous” is not meant 
that offensive type of nationalism which is so 
present in the world to-day. The indigenous 
character of the national church is not divi- 
sive, but looks to the natural development of 
the different Christian bodies in their own 
environment with a view to ultimate union in 
our common Lord, whether we view that union 
as an external church or as an inner fellow- 
ship or both. 


31 


CHAPTER II 
WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


Isn’r the American, English, or Continental 
type of church good enough? is a question that 
has been asked more in the past than now. 
Lest there be any vestiges of it yet, let us 
answer it here. It is a question that arises 
out of nationalistic pride. If these lands were 
thoroughly Christian, there might be reason 
for asking it. But in all these countries mod- 
ern Civilization is so intertwined with our 
form of Christianity that in asking it there is 
no understanding of how much of our civiliza- 
tion goes with it. “Make Americans of them.” 
“Teach them the English language.” These 
are suggestions given to missionaries. But 
who has the right to make such a demand? It 
implies that we are the dominating race. Who 
gave us that position? We say that we believe 
in democracy; that we are the champions of 
democracy. If we really are fair-minded, let 
uS give everyone an equal say. Poll China’s 
four hundred million, India’s three hundred 
and fifteen million, Africa’s millions and all 
the rest, and our question of Americanization 

32 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


or Anglicizing fades into thin air. We pro- 
claim freedom to the world and then want to 
give them our religious customs or want to 
dictate the form of their church government, 
or in some other way inflict on them our 
superiority! It is not only undemocratic but 
unchristian. What they do with the message 
that we give them interests us greatly, but we 
have no authority to compel their acceptance; 
and to insist that after they accept it they 
shall also accept our interpretation of it for 
their lives, our hymns, our literature, our cus- 
toms, and all the rest, if they want to be called 
Christians, would be to take an ungentlemanly 
advantage of those who have placed themselves 
in our care. 

Not only is it right to leave to them the 
choice of the kind of church they wish, but in 
fairness to them and to the future of Chris- 
tianity throughout the world, the missionary 
ought to make clear to them where Christian- 
ity ends and where civilization and culture of 
the Western order begin. The only distinc- 
tion between Christian and nonchristian 
lands is, to quote James S. Dennis, that in 
Christian lands, “the forces of resistance to 
evil are alert and vigorous. The standards of 
life and conduct are permanently elevated. 
The demands of public opinion are enforced 

33 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


by regnant principles. ... The heathen world 
is now, as of old, moribund. It is destitute in 
itself of recuperative power.” 

To deny, however, that there are powerful 
forces of evil at work in Christian lands and 
that much of our life is still strongly pagan, 
would be contrary to the facts. The mis- 
sionary is the ambassador of the cross, not the 
agent of Western theology, custom, methods, 
and what not. In the light of what injustice 
the countries of the missionaries have inflicted 
upon the weaker nonchristian nations and 
peoples, such discrimination becomes a crying 
need. 

Too often have the missionaries been faced 
with the obvious contradiction between the 
principles of Jesus and the practice of their 
own nations. Jesus as the Prince of Peace 
contrasted with nations which not only spend 
fabulous sums on armies and navies in prepar- 
ation for war, but also actually carry on war 
in such ruthless fashion as the lands of the 
mission field could not carry on if they would, 
are as far apart as white from black. There 
is no explaining it away. The only course is 
to disavow the connection between such a civi- 





*Dennis, James S., Christian Missions and Social Progress, 
vol. I, p. 75f. Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by per- 
mission. 


34 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


lization and pure Christianity. The same may 
be said too with reference to all that is dis- 
tinctly the outgrowth of former heathen cus- 
tom or bitter unchristian controversy on the- 
ology and all that relates to the form of the 
church—everything, in short, that was added 
to what Jesus said and did. If the new 
churches wish to express their Christianity in 
our way, that is their affair; but it is not fair 
for us to prejudice them. Let us introduce 
them to the Christ, but let them receive him in 
their natural fashion, and we shall then be 
more sure that the purpose of God for them 
and for all the world will be better accom- 
plished. 

We may well recognize that God as the Cre- 
ator and Father of all peoples had a purpose 
in making us as we are. The genius of one 
people is not that of another. For example, 
India is called the soul of Asia, China the 
hands, and Japan the head. Our Western or 
Hellenized individualistic form of Christian- 
ity has suited the West. But from the make- 
up of Eastern society it looks as if a more 
social type would fit in better with their 
scheme of life. 

Different ages and different social groups 
as well as different peoples have had different 
emphases. Dr. Shailer Mathews in an article, 

35 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


“Theology and the Social Mind” calls atten- 
tion to various types of social mind that have 
characterized Christianity at various stages of 
its development. First, the Semitic with its 
society an Oriental monarchy and therefore 
with a Messianic hope of national scope 
“transcendentalized into a scenario of the 
world drama.” Next in order he cites the 
Greco-Roman, with the Logos doctrine loom- 
ing large, somewhat as the theory of evolu- 
tion does to-day, with the demand for an abso- 
lute God, but one that could cleanse and save 
worshipers by actual contact, as in the mys- 
tery religions of Isis and Osiris, of Mithras, 
of Atys and Cybele. This led to emphasis on 
the doctrine of the incarnation as well as the 
relation of the Logos to the Father. Then 
came the imperialistic social mind, developed 
in Italy, Spain, and Gaul. In the Kast, Orien- 
tal despotism brought stagnation; but in the 
West there was the thought of God in terms 
of the imperial Roman Empire, with a church 
naturally unsympathetic toward mass move- 
ments for more social privilege and that “hated 
democracy and saw salvation in heaven.” 
North of Latin Europe there was the Na- 
tionalistic social mind. Imperialism did not 
get the hold there that it had on southern 
Europe. National churches arose out of this 
36 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


type of mind. In the seventeenth, eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries there was the Bur- 
geois social mind. This period is character- 
ized by commercialism, with the mind blunted 
to the unchristian character of the slave traffic 
and the opium traffic, not to mention the injus- 
tices of industry, and largely concerned with 
individual salvation. Lastly comes the Mod- 
ern social mind which is scientific and demo- 
cratic, with Roman Catholicism still antidemo- 
eratic and the bulk of Protestantism Burgeois, 
though moving toward the Modern. The Mod- 
_ ern social mind would save society as well as 
individuals. 

As Christianity in the West has thus been 
adapted to suit the forms of government, the 
movements in social life, the changes in indus- 
try, and the tendencies of thought, so it is 
reasonable to leave it to the churches of the 
foreign mission fields to shape Christianity to 
meet the needs of their own social order. The 
West has, as we look back over history, made 
many mistakes in her adaptations, and we may 
with good reason hope that they may afford 
to the peoples now in the process of accepting 
Christianity valuable signposts to keep them 
from going astray. 

But whether they go astray or no, Christ is 
as much the Christ of the African as the Christ 

37 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


of the European, and as much the Saviour of 
the Asiatic as of the American. 

To have the religious scheme of another land 
stand between them and God is as harmful to 
the development of a complete expression of 
Christianity as the standing of a _ priest 
between a man and God. It destroys God- 
given initiative. It makes impossible that 
sense of nearness to God that Jesus found so 
precious and stimulating. It restricts the nat- 
ural growth of the Christian soul, just as the 
shade of a great tree keeps a little plant from 
attaining its full size. Christ emphasized 
freedom. “Ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free.” Some are afraid 
of freedom; but if the Spirit is really present 
in the Christian Church, we shall have that 
atmosphere of freedom to which Paul referred, 
when he wrote, “Where the Spirit of the Lord 
is, there is liberty.” We have therefore noth- 
ing to fear if the churches of the foreign fields 
are given this freedom, but, on the contrary, 
it is their divine right as Christians; and to 
grant it to them will release those natural, 
God-given faculties which will enable them to 
build up the most efficient churches and the 
highest type of Christian character through 
the agency of the unrestricted power of the 
God and Father of all mankind. Without this 

38 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


freedom their growth will be dwarfed. With 
it we should see churches filled with the energy 
of the Holy Spirit. 

Out of the feeling about the value of indig- 
enous Christianity on the part of the peoples 
themselves has grown an active demand for 
indigenous churches. This demand is so gen- 
eral among all capable and educated people 
that it must be granted or we shall lose the 
best leadership. Listen to their appeal. This 
one comes from China: 


A transplanted religion without being adapted 
to suit native soil, loses its savor and fails to 
grow. ... Let the foreign missionaries change 
their domineering attitude, if they hold such an 
attitude, and work as servants of Christ for the 
Church of China. 


Again, among the demands of the Christian 
students of China is this: “To have a real 
Chinese Church.” 

In 1923 the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W.-C. A. 
appointed a student commission. One of the 
recommendations for the Student Christian 
Movement was that “it should be indigenous.” 
Another voice from China says: 


It is the missionaries’ church. Every plan for 
work or extension comes from them; they meet, 
*Chinese Recorder, Aug., 1923, p. 488, art. by Y. T. Wu, 
executive secretary, Peking Christian Student Work Union. 
bad 6 
Y 





NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


consult, and decide what is best, and then set 
about doing it, largely with the help of the native 
worker, who has not, however, been called in to 
share their counsels.t 


And this one from India: 


Who can long interest himself in a work in the 
conduct of which he has no voice, where he is con- 
sidered a machine not to be consulted with, and 
when he is not at liberty to impress his person- 
ality, and where the responsibility also is not on 
his shouiders.? 


Among the complaints of the Indian Chris- 
tians has been that the “whole system of doc- 
trine, worship, and organization is foreign. 
India wants liberty.”* In the Continuation 
Committee Conferences held in India in 1912 
and 1913 greater freedom was demanded by 
Indian opinion. It was also urged that the 
Indian Church should have entire freedom to 
develop on such lines as will conduce to the 
most natural expression of the spiritual 
instincts of the Indians. 

The movement for independence has re- 
sulted in some quarters in definite action. As 
early as 1892 we find what was known as the 





*World Missions Conference, Commission I, p. 831. Flem- 
vy Ses Revell Company. Used by permission. 
a 
*Church Missionary Review, 1922, p. 296, art. by E. H. M, 
Waller. Used by permission. 


40 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


“Ethiopian Movement,” or “Africa for the 
Africans,” rending some of the churches of 
South Africa. Since then this expression of 
racial consciousness, demanding independence 
from the rule of the white man, has been more 
or less in evidence in many parts of Africa, 
now and then flaring up in schisms and inde- 
pendent movements. In China the independ- 
ent societies that are due to the desire to be 
free from foreign control are many. Even 
Brazil, the Philippines, and Burma furnish 
us with similar examples. But the greatest 
progress in attainment of independence from 
foreign control has been in Japan, where the 
larger Japanese churches for the most part 
years ago pressed the question until they were 
allowed to establish their independence of mis- 
sionary society and missionary. In these cases 
there is no longer any question. The matter 
is settled. 

And in other situations there is no more 
staying the demand for an indigenous church 
than there was in staying the American col- 
onies from persisting in independence after 
their world-famed declaration of the fourth of 
July, 1776, when we see the vigor and nobility 
of this spirit as set forth in the words of Pro- 
fessor T. C. Chao: 


Chinese civilization at its height is thoroughly 
41 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ethical and Christianity in its essence is the God 
life, issuing in the moral relationships of men 
and women.... 

The Chinese Church is national because it has a 
special message for the Chinese people and a 
special task of spiritualizing Chinese civilization.! 


This is the spirit of the leaders in the Chris- 
tian movement of all lands. Who would put 
a damper upon such divine enthusiasm? The 
doxology would be more appropriate. 

Moreover, this irrepressible demand becomes 
still more irrepressible when we view the 
results that follow the encouragement of this 
spirit. Take Japan, where, as already noted, 
“Christianity has become in a real sense indig- 
enous.” There “its influence on the social and 
intellectual life of the nation has been pro- 
portionately far in advance of its numerical 
strength.’’? 

Considering how little has been done in 
other lands to adapt national customs to 
Christianity, the following is significant in 
showing the result of an indigenous spirit in 
the church: 


The question of giving new meaning to ancient 
customs connected with the religions in Japan, 
so that they may be transformed into Christian 

*Chinese Recorder, June, 1923. 


"International Review of Missions, 1913, p- 4 Used by 
permission, 





42 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


ceremonies and festivals, is receiving increasing 
attention from the missionaries.! 

The testimony is well-nigh universal that 
where there has been a recognition of the value 
of an indigenous church in all its implications, 
the Christians concerned have taken a new 
interest in the church. And Amos Burnet, in 
discussing “Ethiopianism,” says that the 
growth of “those churches which have from the 
beginning exercised a generous policy in the 
calling out and ordination of African minis- 
ters” is “most marked.’ 

How true this is in other fields than Africa 
we dare not say, but it is reasonable to expect 
that increased enthusiasm naturally resulting 
from this policy would have a similar effect. 

There has also come a great change in the 
attitude of the nationals under the greater 
freedom grarfted them in directing their 
churches, as evidenced in the following: 

Who that knows India to-day and can compare 
it with fifteen years ago would not choose to deal 
with the Christian nationalist, outspoken and 


independent, rather than be stifled, blanketed, and 
paralyzed by the old clinging subserviences ?* 


*International Review of Missions, 1917, p. 5. Used by 
permission, See Japan Evangelist, July, 1916, pp. 243, 
246-249. 

*Church Missionary Review, 1922, p. 33. Used by per- 
mission. 

‘International Review of Missions, October, 1923, art. by 
Frank Lenwood. Used by permission. 


43 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


Substituting for India the name of any other 
country where a similar change had taken 
place, these words will apply there also. 
They take into account too the misunderstand- 
ings that have arisen between missionaries and 
nationals. There has, in short, come such a 
welcome change that it has overshadowed all 
the perplexities, disappointments, and losses 
that have come with it. 

And when we come down to the point, we 
may well ask ourselves: Since Christianity 
has been naturalized in our Western lands, 
why not in theirs? The Bible, our great book 
for the propagating of our faith, is more easily 
understood in the East than in the West, for 
it has an Oriental setting. It is closer to them 
than to us. The religion of which it tells 
ought then to be more natural to them than 
to us. 

Finally, our answer to the question, Why 
an indigenous church? is in the study of the 
development of the churches in the foreign 
fields. The results of the different methods 
used by missionaries is a convincing argu- 
ment. There have been men who have paid 
no attention to the building up of churches 
with an indigenous consciousness, and there 
have been those who have with purpose 
directed their efforts to the development of 

44 


WHY AN INDIGENOUS CHURCH? 


such churches. One kind of church has been 
developed by one type of work, and quite 
another kind by the other. In the succeeding 
chapters we shall proceed to trace this devel- 
opment. 


45 


CHAPTER III 
HISTORICAL SURVEY 


Ir is the purpose of this chapter to trace 
from apostolic times to the present the spread 
of Christianity in those respects which have a 
definite relation to the formation and develop- 
ment of indigenous churches as defined in the 
previous chapters. Such material as is at 
hand falls into three divisions: (1) condi- 
tions met, (2) methods used, and (8) results 
obtained. The first period of missionary 
endeavor is quite generally recognized as from 
apostolic days until the time of Constantine, 
about 300 a. p. The second for the purposes 
of this book extends to about 1800, or, more 
exactly, 1792, which date signalizes the begin- 
ning of the rise of Protestant missionary soci- 
eties in rapid succession. The third takes us 
from the days of isolated efforts and the crude 
beginnings of the early nineteenth century to 
1910, the date of the World Missionary Con- 
ference at Edinburgh, and the fourth from 
that date down to the present time. In this 
chapter the above chronological order will be 
followed in the main. 

46 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


1. FRoM THE APOSTLES TO CONSTANTINE 


The religion of Jesus met at its inception 
the opposition that people everywhere accord 
to the new. False charges of atheism, of crimi- 
nal origin, of secret and horrible rites, of 
responsibility for public calamities and of the 
aloofness of Christians from accepting civilian 
duties, were preferred against it by the com- 
mon people; and charges of lack of culture, 
of superstition, of being of foreign origin, of 
being of the lower classes, of plagiarism, and 
later on even of division over dogmas, came 
from the enlightened classes—both types of 
charges that are quite familiar to the pioneer 
missionaries of our own day. Worst of all, 
Christians, by refusing to burn incense to the 
emperor, were persecuted as traitors to the 
state. Such were the forces arrayed against 
it. 

On the other hand, there were forces exter- 
nal and internal which opened the way for the 
rapid adoption of Christianity as the natural 
religion of the empire. Christianity came 
through Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. The 
early apostles went first to the Jews of the 
dispersion. Judaism had permeated the 
Roman Empire so thoroughly that its tenets 
were widely known and so opened the way 

47 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


for Christianity, for through this as an intro- 
duction, Christianity did not seem so strange 
as it does to the minds of the peoples of the 
modern missionary lands. Also a unified cul- 
ture and language did away with a great bar- 
rier which missionaries of to-day have to pass 
and so made the way incomparably easier. 
Political unity, the excellence of communica- 
tion and its wide use throughout the empire 
also worked for the rapid breaking down of 
hostile prejudice, in sharp contrast again to 
the difficulties of communication in Africa, 
China, and other fields. Meantime the minds 
of people were being prepared for the recep- 
tion of Christianity. The Stoics believed in 
the equality of men and the duty of brother- 
hood. These were just what Jesus taught. 
The Eastern mystery religions had met with 
wide acceptance, because they satisfied in a 
measure the craving for revelation, and opened 
up the way for the more complete satisfaction 
that Christianity afforded. Men were think- 
ing of the soul as separate from the body, of 
God as incomprehensible, yet good, of the 
world as needing redemption; they were crav- 
ing eternal life, substituting individualism 
for nationalism and discounting polytheism. 
These thoughts were vital in Jesus’ mind, and 
he gave clear and authoritative answers to 
48 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


them all. These were all elements of a live, 
progressive culture, whereas in modern mis- 
sion fields, Christianity has had to face a 
dying, backward and stultified culture. This 
culture and Christianity were headed in the 
same direction, both looking forward, while in 
our time Christianity in its missionary work 
in foreign fields has had to turn people about 
from a backward-glancing inertia and fa- 
talism. Hence we see in the Roman Empire 
despite the opposition a real outward and 
inward preparation for the entrance of the 
Light. It was so striking a situation that 
scholars have rightly seen in it the providence 
of God. For the planting of an indigenous 
church it was a supremely fertile soil that the 
Roman Empire furnished. 

Those early days were days of simplicity ; no 
mission boards, no drives for centenary cele- 
brations, no question of salary either for the 
missionary or his loca] helper, no synod, no 
council, no discipline, no ritual worthy the 
name, a minimum of authority and a maxi- 
mum of freedom—truly a great new country 
with no roads and no signposts. The follow- 
ers of Jesus went hither and thither to the con- 
fines of the empire and beyond, most of them 
independently and each with his own concep- 
tion of the message. 

49 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


From the start the methods used assured an 
indigenous character to the church. The 
Christian communities were autonomous in 
their government and democratic in their wor- 
ship. Everyone—except the women !—could 
have the floor. The parent church at Jerusa- 
lem did not assume authority over the Gentile 
Christians. Paul exhorted the Corinthian 
church to purge itself of the wrongdoer. The 
apostles did indeed appoint leaders in the local 
churches, but those leaders were local men and 
what respect and obedience were accorded the 
apostles was never due to the fear that a grant- 
in-aid would be withheld; and many of the 
early churches, especially those not visited by 
the apostles, chose their own leaders. 

The question of self-support was never 
raised. Instead of the Jerusalem church tak- 
ing up a collection for the propagation of the 
gospel in foreign parts, the indigenous foreign- 
field churches established the to-us paradoxi- 
cal precedent of contributing to her support. 
The leader, whether teacher, elder or bishop, 
either supported himself or depended upon the 
local congregation for his support wholly or 
in part. Whatever buildings they worshiped 
in had to be provided for out of their own 
purses or by the toil of their own hands. 

The power of the Holy Spirit was manifest 

50 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


in their spirit of unity, their virtuous lives, 
and their evangelistic zeal to a degree that 
has probably never been excelled. In short, it 
was their church and was therefore really 
indigenous. 

But there were problems that arose, and in 
the solving of those problems came a new situ- 
ation. The very success of the propagation of 
the gospel brought with it many difficulties. 
As converts became more numerous there were 
some whose love cooled. Discipline had to be 
administered. The numerous wandering 
prophets and apostles at times had their gen- 
uineness questioned. Some one had to take 
them in hand. Differences of opinion regard- 
ing the person of Christ, culminating in gnos- 
ticism, required handling. What teaching was 
authoritative, what creed should be subscribed 
to, what books were canonical, what proceed- 
ure was correct in the administering of the 
sacraments and other questions, must be an- 
swered. It was felt in all these matters that 
the word of the apostles, who had been asso- 
ciated with Christ, was final; and men who 
had been appointed by them were also entitled 
to this authority. Out of all this there grad- 
ually arose a close organization. The bishops 
became the authoritative heads of the church. 
Gradually too the churches were organized by 

51 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


provinces, with a metropolitan bishop at the 
head. In the West the development went on 
into the papal power as the supreme authority, 
and in the East the various metropolitans 
became supreme. The former democratic 
freedom disappeared and a hierarchy arose. 

The growing need for some form of organi- 
zation, however, did not determine the particu- 
lar form that the organization took. It was 
the form of government to which the people 
were accustomed that was adopted by the 
church. It was modeled upon the Imperial 
Rule of the Roman State. This is a tribute 
to the adaptibility of Christianity to the envi- 
ronment it meets. For our day we would 
accordingly expect that with the rise of 
democracy throughout the world the prevail- 
ing form of church organization ‘would be 
democratic. A study of modern missions goes 
far to confirm this observation. 

Besides church organization there were 
other developments under way.. A Christian 
literature sprang up. Apostolic letters, those 
of the New Testament. as it is to-day and others 
too, Gospels, apocalypses, and later on also 
apologetic literature and treatises on disci- 
pline, spiritual life, and other topics bore wit- 
ness to the indigenous character of the church. 
In the development of this literature schools 

52 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


at Alexandria, Antioch, and Carthage played 
a part. Through the influence of Alexandria, 
the Greek learning, which was fought against 
as unchristian by one element in the church, 
was adopted, thus bringing in another indige- 
nous element. 

As more and more people joined the Chris- 
tians, nonchristian elements were increas- 
ingly adopted. To make up for local divini- 
ties displaced by the Christian religion, saints 
were given the position formerly accorded 
them. Local cults and holy places were insti- 
tuted. Very likely the celebration of Epiph- 
any was taken largely from the cult of Diony- 
sius. ‘These were but a few out of many. 
Such elements were indeed indigenous, and 
the adoption of some at least was justifiable. 
But to substitute for the prerogatives of idols 
and demons those of saints, was dragging 
Christ in the mire of heathenism; for, to wor- 
ship saints, pray to them, and expect help 
from them, displaced Christ and kept the reli- 
gion still heathen. For an indigenous Chris- 
tianity the preservation of Christianity is as 
essential as is its indigenous character. 

Discipline and spiritual power too began to 
wane before the end of this period. At first 
to become a follower of Jesus was to join the 
aliens. But as time progressed more of the 

53 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


upper classes became Christians. The stand- 
ing of these folk and the ever-growing num- 
bers in the church made Christianity more and 
more popular. In many cases converts clung 
to the old customs and ways. Instead of 
purging out the old to make room for the new, 
they added on Christianity. Church disci- 
pline began to relax, and the church gradually 
lost the driving power of the Spirit. To 
many, Christianity became largely a religion 
of form, a warning for all time against the 
disintegrating influence resulting from letting 
in folk who have not in heart accepted the 
principles of Jesus and against the assump- 
tion of authority by clergy alone. 

Thus we see, before the fourth century, when 
Constantine founded the state church, the 
Holy Spirit working through the underworld 
of the Roman Empire, binding together in the 
love of Christ a body of men and women, who 
with a despised culture and a message that 
appealed to women as well as to men—whereas 
in the mission fields to-day women are usually 
slower than men to accept a new religion— 
until in less than three centuries from the 
crucifixion of their Lord, the empire was liter- 
ally honeycombed with Christianity, so that 
the church (1) felt that the work of evan- 
gelizing the world had been practically done 

54 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


and (2) had attained a very close form of 
organization. While there are features in 
this development which indicate the loss of 
early spiritual power and a willingness to com- 
promise, we have the remarkable story of the 
growth of an indigenous body that was adapt- 
ing itself more and more, as time went on, to 
the customs and ideals of the empire. Through 
compromising with the world came, however, 
the loss of that sense of difference between the 
followers of Christ and those who were not, 
and consequently sounded the death knell of 
evangelistic fervor, which is ever the life-blood 
of the church. This period makes clear the 
adaptability of Christianity and its wonder- 
ful power to capture the minds and hearts of 
men and women, but also as well shows 
clearly the dangers of (1) too much adapta- 
tion and (2) the monopoly of power by the 
few. 

To compare the mission field of that day 
with the mission fields of our day is a task 
that requires much care. There are those who 
would have us return to apostolic methods. 
In part their contention is worthy of consid- 
eration, especially in respect to the freedom 
which the apostles granted the local churches. 
But, as for self-support, before saying the last 
word, we would like to wait until a later 

5d 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


chapter gives us a chance to view the whole 
field. Here we cannot but notice that in Paul’s 
day his social status was on a par with that of 
his converts. He naturally lived with them. 
His culture was their culture. His customs, 
his language, his whole manner of life was 
theirs. To-day the missionary comes from 
lands, some of which, because of the difference 
of level and the impossibility of assimilation 
(so we are told), restrict or utterly forbid the 
immigration to their land of the people to 
whom the missionary goes with the gospel. 
Culture, social order, customs, language, and 
the standard of living are totally different. A 
thoroughgoing apostolic way of doing the mis- 
sionary task would seem to be suicidal to the 
missionary cause; and this great difference 
suggests the advantage of finding and train- 
ing those who can do the work, at the same 
time living on the plane of the people, just as 
the apostles did of old. 


2. From CONSTANTINE TO CAREY 


After the establishment of the Christian 
religion as the State Religion of the Roman 
Empire by Constantine, the moral and spir- 
itual disintegration which had already set in, 
continued and enlarged. The suppression by 
the authorities of the church of the Montanist 

56 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


movement toward spiritual freedom in the 
third century had driven men from the organ- 
ized church to live as recluses, but they still 
remained followers of Christ. The corrup- 
tion that was in the church was a second 
reason that increased the number of those who 
took to lives of solitude. A third force was 
also at work, the desire of some to suffer for 
Christ. This desire could no longer be satis- 
fied by enduring persecution, for persecution 
had ended. They accordingly sought an out- 
let for their devotion by depriving themselves 
of human society and the other joys of life. 

The men who thus withdrew from the out- 
side world spent their lives in such a way that 
they developed ability which the church was 
bound to use. Education became enshrined 
in the monasteries which they founded. True 
religion found its vital force there. More than 
this, the monks who had fled from the hated 
social order later became the pioneers of civi- 
lization and the intellectual leaders of the 
world. In fact, so strong did the monastic 
system become that monks became Popes, as 
for example, Gregory the Great. 

These were not the only ways in which the 
Spirit of God used this great movement. In 
the last section was noticed the feeling 
throughout the church that with the advent 

dT 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


of the state church the work of evangelizing 
was done. But the constant pressure of the 
northern tribes upon the boundaries of the 
empire kept reminding the more devoted of 
Christ’s followers that there were great num- 
bers beyond, to whom the gospel had not been 
carried. Naturally, the monks, being the most 
spiritually minded, felt the urge most of all. 
To them fell the task, therefore, of winning 
the northern tribes. 

In the ideals of these peoples there was 
much that was favorable to the spread of 
Christianity. The Celts had already become 
subject in part to Roman influence and those 
within the empire had accepted the state 
religion. Throughout the northern tribes, 
despite the fact that they all—Celts, Slavs, 
and Teutons—had a degenerate nature wor- 
ship, there was a passion for immortality, 
comparatively high regard for women, and a 
strong, independent, nationalistic spirit— 
splendid ground for the planting of an indige- 
nous Christianity. 

But the methods that were employed from 
this time were the reverse of those that had 
been so successful in the early days, Then 
Christianity had worked up from the bottom 
to the top. After Christianity became the 
state religion the process was from the top 

58 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


down. The church had become allied with the 
state in the empire and laws were passed com- 
pelling the acceptance of Christianity. The 
church proceeded to ally itself with the state 
throughout the North and the East too. Rul- 
ers were the first object of conversion. Then 
when the ruler was won, he used his influence, 
and often his authority, to propagate Chris- 
tianity among his subjects. The British Isles 
were the only exception. Augustine’s exegesis 
of the passage, “Compel them to come in” was 
accepted as against that of men like Chrysos- 
tom, who would use only persuasion, not force. 
For instance, Vladimir, king of Russia, becom- 
ing a Christian as the result of a vow, made 
short work of the “Christianizing” of his king- 
dom. He issued a proclamation that “whoso- 
ever, rich or poor, shall not come to-morrow 
to the river to receive baptism, will fall into 
disgrace in my sight.”! History records a big 
turnout on the morrow. But that was very 
mild when compared with the thoroughgoing 
methods of Charlemagne, the Teutonic Knights 
and others, who tried to kill the two birds 
of political and religious opposition with the 
one stone of armed force. 

If these had been the only means of con- 





*Robinson, C. C., Conversion of Europe, p. 499. Long- 
mans, Green & Co. Used by permission. 


59 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


version used, Europe would no doubt be far 
worse off than she is to-day. Fortunately, 
there were not only rulers concerned in the 
spread of Christianity, but the monks as well; 
and no matter how one may criticize their 
haste in securing first a nominal acceptance 
of Christianity, it must be granted that they 
were devoted men and also did a great work 
in transforming the northern tribes into na- 
tions with settled habits. They were tireless 
in their efforts for the social and spiritual 
uplift of the people who had been received in 
wholesale fashion into the church. They 
cleared forests, taught the people agriculture, 
practiced charity, and gave them religious 
instruction. But the religious instruction 
could not get very far, as the people were 
already baptized, and therefore saved, as they 
thought. It left little inducement to learn. 
In judging the work of the monks, however, 
it is necessary to take into account the task 
they had to perform and the training they 
themselves had. 

Questioning the indigenous character of the 
church organizations which resulted from their 
work, there are a number of features to con- 
sider. 

(1) The matter of self-support was easy 
of settlement. The monks worked faithfully 

60 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


with their hands. Often they secured grants 
from the rulers, a policy quite in harmony 
with the principles of an indigenous church, 
as to-day the government grants for educa- 
tion in India. Very early too they taught 
the people to bring tithes and gifts. This 
part of their work was well done for indige- 
nous church ends. 

(2) Autonomy, however, was a different 
matter. Here there was a distinct lack. The 
Trish Church for a time held out against the 
papal power, but finally succumbed, as did 
Germany and France, whose submission was 
largely due to the statesmanship of Boniface, 
not only a redoubtable missionary, but also the 
avowed champion of an imperial church, sub- 
ject to the papal see. Of course, also work- 
ing against autonomy was the wholesale char- 
acter of the conversion of northern Europe, 
which made impossible any clear comprehen- 
sion of Christ’s message and the work of the 
church. Such a method did not build up an 
intelligent ministry and much less an intelli- 
gent laity. Hence churches were born that 
did not know enough to take the reins of gov- 
ernment into their own hands. Furthermore, 
the holding of all authority in the church by 
the celibates was like laying the ax at the 
root of the tree of democracy. The man of 

61 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


normal development, married and living like 
the rest of mankind, fitted by normal expe- 
rience to form judgments and play the part of 
aman, had nochance. Education and religion 
were in the cold storage plant of the monas- 
tery. Hence in government we find only a 
development still further away from a natural 
Christianity. ) 

This weakness in the indigenous character 
of their religion was felt more and more as 
time went on and men began to think for 
themselves. We have seen the revolt of a 
greater part of Germany, England, part of 
Scotland, France, Switzerland, Holland, the 
Scandinavian kingdoms, not to mention the 
earlier breaking away of the Eastern Church. 
These all refused to be governed by a foreign 
religious power, in most cases organizing na- 
tional churches of their own. 

(3) During all this time there was con- 
tinued the adaptation of Christianity to the 
customs and ways of the people that overdid 
the work of making the church indigenous. 
Saints’ chapels were substituted for demons’ 
shrines, just as earlier in the southern part of 
Europe. Among the Letts, Maria became the 
“Mother of Cattle.” Among the Slavs, John 
_ the Baptist fell heir to the position of Ivan 
Kupalo, the god of summer. As late as the 

62 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


eighth century German priests still attended 
Woden’s festivals and made sacrifies to him. 
Old marriage customs, superstitions about the 
planting of seed, and countless other heathen 
beliefs kept on, some of them even to our,own 
time. The elaborate ritual of the church out- 
did heathenism and obscured from the half- 
converted the real message and life of Christ. 

(4) Another and happier adaptation was the 
development of a Christian literature and the 
use of religious plays. The earliest transla- 
tion of the Bible into the vernacular of any 
tribe was that by Ulfilas into the Gothic 
tongue. There followed poems, paraphrases, 
and translations of parts of the Bible. These 
date from the eighth century on. The first 
religious play in England was about 1100. On 
the Continent there were plays also, and we 
have in 1204 the instance of missionaries at 
Riga using the religious play to propagate the 
faith. The church, however, frowned upon a 
part of this naturalizing of Christianity, for 
in 1229 a canon was passed at the Council of 
Toulouse, rigorously condemning the use of 
vernacular translations. Another very effec- 
tive barrier to this feature of indigenous 
Christianity was the illiteracy of the great 
bulk of the population. The task of educat- 
ing these vast numbers was one that took cen- 

63 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


turies and, sad to say, it was the policy of 
Rome, continued until now in many lands, to 
discourage the education that would bring 
indigenous development. 

Thus the church lost its indigenous charac- 
ter through the rise of the foreign religious 
power of Rome and its Christian character 
through the overwhelming flood of heathen- 
ism coming in and making only a formal 
acceptance of Christianity. A real, red- 
blooded Christianity, laymen and clergy work- 
ing hand in hand for the salvation of the 
world, had given way to the celibate type alone 
doing the work. Not that men and women 
who consecrate themselves to a life of entire 
self-sacrifice for Christ and his church are to 
be looked down upon. Far be it from that. 
Who would belittle the character of their devo- 
tion? But a church whose sole guides and 
messengers to the heathen world are of this 
one Class, is a lopsided development, not a nor- 
mal, well-rounded one. 

With Europe evangelized in a superficial 
manner, there came with the advent of the 
explorers in North and South America, Africa 
and Asia, fresh calls to the church to spread 
the gospel. The methods that were used in 
these other fields, so far as the Roman Catholic 
missions were concerned, were for the most 

64 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


part still dependent upon external authority 
and naturally no strong churches were built 
up in any of those lands. In India the work 
of Xavier, of deNobili, who lived like a Brah- 
man and won one hundred thousand converts, 
and of others, was so widespread and super- 
ficial, though generally without the use of 
authority, that a Roman Catholic, Father 
Dubois, for thirty-two years in Mysore, wrote 
on December 15, 1815: 

In twenty-five years I cannot say that I once 
found anywhere one single downright and 
straightforward Christian among the natives of 
India. ... Their entire religion is confined to 
the observance of a few external ordinances and 
the repetition of certain forms of prayer... .1 
Bishop Milne of the Anglican Church quite 
agrees with this, for in writing of Xavier’s 
work he says: 

The conversion of the country to Christianity 
is no nearer than when he left it, for anything 
that his followers have done; they form but a 
Christian caste, unprogressive, incapable of 
evangelizing.” 

While the government employed force in the 
conversion of the people, the Jesuits and other 
orders toiled most faithfully, organized the 


*Richter, J., 4 History of Missions in India, p. 93. 
Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 

*Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 13. 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 


65 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


American Indians into villages, taught them 
various trades, doing in those early days what 
modern missions have seen necessary in fields 
where the economic level of the converts is 
so low that some form of industrial training 
is a prerequisite to self-support, self-respect, 
and other elements that make up an indige- 
nous church. Where their work lasted, their 
system of paternalism, never encouraging 
the people to think for themselves and take 
the reins in their own hands, but ever keeping 
them in subjection first to Rome and secondly 
to the clergy of the country, has failed to 
develop that spirit of initiative and that feel- 
ing of “my church” and “our church,” which 
“is characteristic of a really indigenous Chris- 
tianity. 

What their system has developed is wit- 
nessed to by many, both Catholic and Protes- 
tant. Abbe Dominic, chaplain of the Emperor 
Maximilian, called Mexican Christianity a 
“baptized heathenism.” An Archbishop of 
Venezuela wrote of his field. “The clergy have 
fallen into profound contempt.’? Sir James 
Bryce writes of South America: “Men of the 
upper or educated class appear wholly indif- 
ferent to theology and Christian worship. It 





*Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 408. 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 


66 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


has no interest for them.”? To sum it up, the 
masses are heathen, the clergy not respectable, 
and the respectable folk alienated. Neither 
“indigenous” nor “Christian” apply. 

The work of the Puritans among the Indians 
and that of the Moravians among the Eskimos, 
slaves, and other backward and downtrodden 
people though most thorough in method and 
devoted in spirit, resulting in many conver- 
sions, failed likewise to build up strong 
churches. There were two factors that hin- 
dered the work of the Moravians. The first 
was the inferior mental capacity of the people. 
The Eskimos and the Negro slaves when evan- 
gelized, still needed the guidance of the white 
man. The second was that they did not work 
definitely toward the building up of indige- 
nous communities of Christians. In 1909 the 
Moravians confessed as much. They felt that 
their system, at least in some cases, should be 
modified in the direction of throwing more 
responsibility upon the native Christians early 
in a mission’s history. The work of Eliot and 
others was developing native leadership when 
wars and removals put an end to it. The 
Danish-Halle Mission in India, first working 
to convert outecaste slaves, made no attempt 





*Robinson, C. H., History of Christian Missions, p. 411. 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 


67 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


to develop initiative, but was paternalism to 
the extent that the missionary could fine or 
flog, with authority from the government. 
Diffusive effort and neglect to train up a 
strong, native ministry were other hindrances 
to the building up of a strong church. 

Before closing this section a word is due the 
Nestorian movement. When the emperor out- 
lawed the Nestorians, they went eastward, 
founded schools which not only prepared mis- 
sionaries, but also taught the sciences of the 
time and carried the gospel as far as into 
China and India. There they lost their mis- 
sionary zeal, in China, by the acquirement of 
wealth and social position, in India by drop- 
ping into the caste system. In the Nearer 
East their life was crushed out, as was that 
of the other Eastern branches of the church, 
by minute theological speculation, and finally 
by the tide of Mohammedanism which put an 
abrupt stop to the propagation of Christianity. 
Here we see a church that was able to sup- 
port and govern itself, but was side-tracked 
from its missionary zeal by worldliness and 
exclusiveness, and so lost its vitality. 


SUMMARY 


This long period from 300 to 1800, then, 
has no model of a church of a truly indige- 
68 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


nous type established in a foreign land by the 
work of missionaries. Some were self-support- 
ing, some became self-governing, but none 
developed and held a real missionary zeal. 
The nearest approaches to it were the work 
of the monks, and we have seen how one-sided 
that development was and the Nestorian 
movement eastward. The period, while replete 
with Christlike heroism on the part of both 
Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries, 
failed to produce any theory of an indigenous 
church, much less any attempt to build up 
such a church. It is clear that (1) authority 
of an armed kind and (2) “paternalism,” each 
alone or combined, were unable to produce a 
virile Christianity; (3) that. the loss of mis- 
sionary zeal, as in the case of the Nestorians, 
is fatal; and that (4) scattered effort is at 
best mostly a waste of otherwise commendable 
zeal, so far as the founding of indigenous 
churches is concerned. 


3. From CAREY TO THE EDINBURGH 
CONFERENCE 


In the first period we found the develop- 
ment of missionary activity leading to what 
we now look upon as an unfortunate conclu- 
sion. In the second period there were no 
developments of a really constructive nature. 

69 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


But things began to move in the third period. 
The Protestant denominations took up the 
work of missions more and more in earnest as 
the time went on, and we see not only a devel- 
opment from mere individual effort for indi- 
viduals to cooperative work in individual 
missions and between missions, first of the 
same denomination, and second, of various 
denominations, but also a development from 
the one method of evangelistic work to the 
multiform activities of educational, medical, 
social, and industrial work, culminating in 
1910 at Edinburgh in a great missionary gath- 
ering at which conditions faced, methods used, 
and results achieved were considered as a 
whole and a program laid out for the whole 
work. 

In this period there was a situation through- 
out the mission fields which, though it could 
not approximate for favorableness the situa- 
tion that the first apostles faced, yet had many 
favoring factors. For example, the Confu- 
cianism of China has so much in common with 
Christianity that the Jesuit Ricci in the six- 
teenth century assured the Chinese that Chris- 
tianity was a development of Confucianism. 
Scholars like Legge have interpreted the 
Chinese Classics as committed to a belief in 
a Supreme Being. In India, deNobili, as 

70 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


already noted, in finding that the Brahmins 

had a high conception of One God, lived like 
one of them. In Japan the missionaries found 
a form of Buddhism which seemed to have 
met with some form of Christianity and to 
have been thereby modified so that it possessed 
features of similarity to Christianity. Among 
the Karens of Burma there was current a tra- 
dition much like that in the early chapters of 
Genesis and a belief that white men from the 
West would come with the message of salva- 
tion. 

In striking contrast with the necessity 
Christianity had in the first three centuries 
of developing a culture of its own, the record 
of the missionary work of the nineteenth cen- 
tury shows that wherever the missionary went 
he was the bearer of a culture that was far in 
advance of the culture of the nation which 
became his field of labor. The degradation, 
superstition, and illiteracy of the South Sea 
Islander, the African, the American Indian, 
the great masses of China, Japan, and India, 
placed the missionary in the position of an 
all-round benefactor, far above the people to 
whom he ministered. Even to the cultured of 
the Near East, of China, of India, and of 
Japan, he brought the fruits of modern medi- 
cal science and all the learning of the West. 

71 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


But there was much too that prejudiced 
these peoples against Christianity. Besides 
their natural aversion to anything foreign we 
must add the oppression of the Spanish explor- 
ers and rulers in America, those of the Dutch, 
Spanish, Portuguese and English in the East 
and the injustices committed by the United 
States, particularly toward Mexico. All these, 
save the English and Americans, strove at one 
time or another in one region or another to 
force Christianity on the people. Later on 
came the strife for Asia and Africa between 
France, Germany, England, Italy, Russia, and 
others—all known as Christian, for from them 
the Christian missionaries came—and these 
countries gave protection to their nationals 
serving as missionaries. It was hard to under- 
stand the Dove of Peace sitting on the Mailed 
Fist. And throughout the world the traders 
from Christian countries committed such 
atrocities that in revenge the missionaries suf- 
fered, and sometimes were even killed and 
eaten. The degenerate type of Christianity 
in the Near East and of the Syrian Christians 
in the Far East were a poor recommendation 
for the Prostestant missionaries. Further- 
more, where there was a high type of culture, 
there was a lofty pride which rated that cul- 
ture as superior to Christianity when the pos- 

72 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


sessor of that culture saw the unchristian, 
domineering attitude of the Westerners. These 
all served to neutralize the advantages pos- 
sessed by the missionaries. 

At the beginning of this period Carey 
sounded the note of the indigenous church for 
the foreign field. He began with (1) the ideal 
of self-support, (2) started a policy of concen- 
tration in the establishment of a training col- 
lege, and (38) began the production of a 
literature for the uplifting of the people. 
Says Doctor Mylne, in Missions to the Hindus, 

I should hardly be saying too much did I lay 
down that subsequent missions have proved suc- 


cessful or the opposite in a proportion fairly 
exact to their adoption of Carey’s methods. 


The London Missionary Society first, and 
later the Church Missionary Society in Eng- 
land, and still later the American Board in 
America declared their belief in indigenous 
churches. The second mentioned society 
expressed it as “the development of native 
churches, with a view to their ultimate settle- 
ment upon a self-supporting, self-governing 
and self-extending system.’”” 

The carrying out of this ideal was another 

*Robinson, 4d History of ‘Christian Missions, p. 81. 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. Used by permission. 


*Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 
II, p. 15, Church Missionary Society. Used by permission. 


rys> 
bo 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


matter. Societies aplenty and missionaries 
unnumbered seem never to have heard of these 
ideals. We shall follow the development by 
fields. 

In India the early days were taken up with 
preaching and work with the Bible. The low 
social standing of the converts, of whom many 
were rescued famine victims and low-caste 
people, and all with rare exceptions born and 
brought up in subjection to others, led to a 
body of Christians dependent upon the mis- 
sionary as children upon their parents. Quot- 
ing Richter: 

During the first half of the nineteenth century 
the native churches in connection with all the 
various missionary agencies were equally depend- 
ent on the missionaries and their respective 
societies. .. . Even where they employed native 
assistants . . . they were only the curates, so to 
speak, of the missionaries. 

That it was by no means an ideal arrangement 
.. . had as yet occurred to hardly a single mis- 
sionary society.! 


About 1830 a change of policy toward a 
widening of missionary activity began. Edu- 
cation played a larger part, but there was as 
yet practically no responsibility placed upon 
trained Indian workers. Theological classes 


* Richter, Julius, 4 History of Missions in India, p. 230, 
Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 


74 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


too were conducted in English, and Latin and 
Greek were taught the students. Secretary 
Rufus Anderson of the American Board noted 
that “men too far uplifted above the average 
. lust after more cultured hearers than. . 
are found in the villages and after higher 
salaries than could be obtained.’? This state 
of affairs did not harmonize with newly awak- 
ened conceptions of an indigenous church, as 
the following shows: 


Toward the middle of the century the view be- 
came prevalent that Indian Christendom ought to 
provide adequately for its own pastoral oversight, 
and this ought to be so arranged as that the sup- 
port of the preachers should impose no intoler- 
able burden upon the native churches.? 


Accordingly, 


Greek and Latin, as well as a number of dog- 
matic subjects, were thrown overboard, instruc- 
tion was given in the vernacular (instead of Eng- 
lish) and an attempt was made to preserve the 
catechist’s sense of nationality as far as possible. 
Men trained in these lines were now ordained in 
larger numbers so that the native churches might 
be sufficiently provided with pastors.® 


Henry Venn set himself to the task of making 
the churches of the Church Missionary Society 


*Richter, Julius, d History of Missions in India, p. 421. 
Used by Spgs 

*Ibid., p. 4 

*"Ibid., p. 120. 


45 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


indigenous. The application of his plan, how- 
ever, was followed by a checking of the rapid 
growth of that mission’s work. Doctor Rich- 
ter offers the explanation that the number of 
missionaries was reduced too rapidly and the 
district made too large. 

But better evidence of the naturalization 
of Christianity in India lies in the expression 
of the Indians themselves. In 1870 an inde- 
pendent church known as the Christo Samaj 
was founded. Various pseudo-Christian sects 
also sprang up in the north. In South India 
more particularly Christian songs were com- 
posed by Indians and set to Indian music. 
Early expressions of desire to unite in one 
Christian body in 1872 and again in 1892 died 
out. But in 1908 the United Church of South 
India, combining the churches of the Presby- 
terians, the American Board and the London 
Missionary Society, was organized. Then the 
Presbyterian bodies throughout the rest of 
India united. Soon after 1900 four separate 
Indian missionary societies were formed by 
Indian Christians. Coming along at the same 
time was a rapid advance in self-support, 
much of it arising out of the conviction on the 
part of the Indian preachers and laity that it 
was their duty. More important still, the 
self-consciousness of the Indian Churches was 

76 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


rapidly developing and the educated men of 
the church were growing decidedly restive 
under the domination of the missionary and 
the foreign society. This led to the granting 
of a great measure of autonomy by the major- 
ity of the missions. 

The work of the Baptists in Burma fur- 
nishes a remarkable instance of the working 
out of a policy consciously directed to the 
building up of an indigenous church. The 
work of Abbott, Carpenter, and others in the 
Karen Basein Mission from the start had in 
operation a self-supporting and increasingly 
self-governing church. So thoroughly was the 
idea of self-respect indoctrinated that in 1849 
the “native preachers adopted a resolution 
that they would not receive any further money 
from America, and this rule has prevailed in 
the mission to the present day.”’ Hand in 
hand went self-propagation. This is a clear 
case of the workability of the indigenous 
church if the missionary has vision, faith, and 
perseverance. 

In Africa the development of the churches 
founded by the missionaries took varied forms. 
The deadly effect of the West Coast climate 
on Europeans led the Church Missionary Soci- 

*Merriman, E. F., 4 History of Baptist Missions, p. 74. 
American Baptist Publication Society. Used by permis- 


sion. 
17 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ety to appoint a Negro bishop in 1843 
(Crowther) and put him in charge. But his 
lack of administrative ability, despite his fine 
Christian character, made the experiment dis- 
astrous, and later English bishops were again 
appointed. A great falling away followed 
this return to foreign supervision, but most 
who seceded and formed independent bodies 
afterward return to the fold. In Sierra Leone 
the withdrawal of the Church Missionary Soci- 
ety in 1861 is now regarded as somewhat pre- 
mature. Many of the Negro pastors were 
highly trained intellectually and were men of 
true piety, but, with some exceptions, they 
lacked the ripeness of character that guards 
against occasional backsliding. They also 
lacked firmness of discipline, self-control, 
steadfastness and humility. 

In South Africa the London Missionary So- 
ciety and the American .Board stressed self- 
government and self-support with the result 
that in Natal by 1894 (the work was begun in 
1835) the Board in America was no longer 
asked for aid in supporting the churches, and 
as early as 1865 the churches were supporting 
three missionaries of their own race. In 1873 
the London Missionary Society withdrew all 
support. Other missions found autonomy 
brought vigor and self-support. 

78 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


In Uganda the Church Missionary Society 
began in 1893 a work on definitely self-sup- 
porting and self-governing principles. Its 
success was phenomenal. From the start the 
entire responsibility for the support of African 
workers and the building of churches was 
placed upon the Uganda church, and a large 
measure of autonomy was granted them, using 
their local system of government as the church 
system, with sympathetic superintendence, 
not domination, by the European. It went far 
to show that the best work was done where no 
European other than the missionary was. 

Putting together the work of the missions 
noted as the ones most outstanding in their 
success at developing indigenous churches and 
adding what other missions throughout the 
continent have done, and much of it splendid 
work too, we find that the nineteenth century 
brought a great development everywhere from 
the smallest of beginnings to the training up 
of a body of zealous workers and of churches 
of no small amount of missionary zeal, with 
great advance in self-support, and the awak- 
ening in the African churches of a strong 
desire to govern themselves, with some seces- 
sions, with estrangements, particularly where 
numbers of Europeans and Africans were 
thrown together, and the giving over of author- 

9 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ity in the more advanced missions very largely 
to the Africans. During this period, however, 
the character of the African did not show any 
general sign of outgrowing its immaturity— 
in the immediate future, at least. Withdrawal 
of missionary control or the absence of the 
missionary was generally followed by lapses 
in sex relations and reversion to heathen wor- 
ship. The presence of the white man, too, 
introduced a very trying factor. Too much 
of the refuse of Europe, the idea the whites 
often held of their superiority, and the color- 
line drawn, hindered the founding of strong 
churches. In some sections the government, 
fearing the Ethiopian Movement, forbade the 
organizing of local congregations unless under 
the control of a foreign missionary. The fol- 
lowing quotation sums up the situation: 


Everywhere native helpers have been educated 
who give assistance in church and school; but 
their subordinate social standing and the lack of 
maturity of character in most of,them prevent the 
native pastors from enjoying the respect necessary 
in order to leadership, although there are not 
wanting commanding individual personalities.? 


Take it all in all, though self-government was 
in many missions granted in large measure 


*Warneck, Gustav, 4 History of Protestant Missions, p. 
235. Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 


80 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


and proved a source of increased zeal to the 
church, still Africa by 1910 was far from ripe 
for the withdrawal of European supervision. 
In Madagascar we have the wonderful story 
of the withdrawal of the London Missionary 
Society for twenty-five years (1835-1861), at 
the end of which time the church was four 
times as strong in numbers as when the mis- 
sionaries left. It looks as if there the presence 
of the missionary were not equal to his 
absence. But though the missionaries, before 
the terrible persecution that made their with- 
drawal advisable, had given the Malagasy the 
New Testament, and many had learned to read 
it, there was still the work of training an ade- 
quate ministry and also much other work to 
be done. The story of Madagascar goes to 
show that there at least, just as in the early 
church, persecution only served to strengthen 
the cause, and in Madagascar the people were 
inferior in culture to the early disciples. 
The work of evangelizing Hawaii and the 
South Sea Islands was carried on largely by 
the London Missionary Society and the Ameri- 
ean Board. When the first difficulties had 
been overcome, the smallness of the communi- 
ties made possible the rapid development of 
church organization. The great distances, the 
poor means of communication, and the small 
81 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


number of the missionaries all combined to 
lead the missionary early to look forward to 
local autonomy. Self-support was compara- 
tively easy of attainment, as on the islands 
the line, “Man wants but little here below,” 
applies if it applies anywhere. The great task 
of the missionary was the creation of a willing- 
ness on the part of the local church to shoulder 
responsibility. There was also the danger of 
moral relapse as already noted in Africa. On 
the other hand, the evangelistic zeal of these 
churches was truly remarkable. These little 
communities early began their development 
toward the ideal of an indigenous church, but 
again, as in Africa, they needed either some 
form of supervision or the presence of the mis- 
Sionary as adviser. 

Korea is another field where remarkable 
progress in the naturalizing of Christianity 
took place. The Korean Christians took so 
readily to giving of their goods and to spread- 
ing the gospel that from 1884 to 1900 little 
need was felt for training up a ministry. 
Short period Bible and training classes were 
well attended and in these strong leaders were 
developed. Such was the power of the church 
that it has been called “The Church of the 
Holy Spirit.” From a subordinate position 
the Korean leaders rose with the encourage- 

82 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


ment of the missionaries to the position of 
coworkers with them. From 1900 on, the need 
of having men to administer the rites of the 
church led to training that looked forward 
to the ordination of a ministry. The mis- 
sionaries for the most part left to the Koreans 
the task of building their own churches in 
their national style of architecture, and en- 
couraged them in self-support. The success 
attained was largely due to the good sense 
of the missionaries in keeping the church close 
to the ideal of an indigenous organization. 

Almost from the start in Japan there were 
signs that the churches would not have to be 
urged to take responsibility. The compara- 
tively high intellectual character of the first 
converts and the strong nationalistic feeling 
of the Japanese led them even to insist in 
many cases that they be given the authority. 
Any church that was not self-supporting was 
looked down upon. Before 1910 the Congre- 
gationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists 
had three separate strong churches, made up 
of practically all the churches of the same 
polity, all separate from foreign control. 
Quoting from the Edinburgh Conference 
Report: 

Christianity has become naturalized, has given 
birth to leaders comparable in character and abil- 

83 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ity to those of the West, and has created some 
aggressive, self-governing denominations. The 
passion for independence has driven the churches 
to self-support.+ 


In making Christianity their own and aggres- 
sively assuming their responsibility for the 
care of the church, the Japanese stand easily 
first in this period. 

In striking contrast we have the backward- 
ness of the Chinese churches, though the work 
was begun in China many decades before it 
was started in Japan. The progress of the two 
churches was much as the progress of the two 
countries in taking over Western education 
and invention. Before 1910 there were iso- 
lated churches supporting their own pastors 
and there were even churches like those in 
Manchuria, Fukien, and some in Honan sup- 
porting their own work entirely or nearly so. 
In West China the different churches were at 
the end of this period just at the point where 
they would have joined in one organic union, 
but the Home Boards refused to allow the 
union. Education had as in Japan and India, 
made great strides, and much of it was union 
education too; and there was already some 
moving toward a wider union. The Presby- 





*World Missions Conference, Commission I, p. 65. Flem- 
ing H. Revell. Used by permission. 


84 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


terians and the Anglicans each were getting 
their various bodies together into one organi- 
zation. But a real national consciousness, 
such as had early come to the front in Japan 
and had by 1910 in India reached a very 
advanced stage of development, was still dor- 
mant, waiting for the Revolution of 1911-12 
to awaken the nation and the Christian Church 
to its responsibility and opportunity. The 
church was still pretty much content to lie 
in the lap of the foreign missionary society. 

Though the American Board started its 
work in the Near East with the avowed pur- 
pose of helping the already established 
churches, it was driven by opposition to start 
new churches. At Harpoot, under the guid- 
ance of Crosby H. Wheeler, there was devel- 
oped a unique work, promoting self-support 
and autonomy. 

Other missions too had worth-while features, 
but it is impossible to note them all. Under 
the Rhenish Mission the Batak Church of 
Sumatra was so successful that it deserves a 
word here. The local chiefs were used as lead- 
ers in church as well as society and all 
churches were built in simple Batak style. AU 
customs not distinctly antichristian were 
allowed. The ideal of self-support was kept 
before the church. Not only was self-support 

85 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


developed, but also such a strong missionary 
spirit that they won seven thousand Moham- 
medans to Christ. In Brazil a well-established 
Presbyterian Church had started work among 
the Indians, and many other bodies in various 
countries had organized missionary societies 
and were supporting workers in other fields. 
With regard to the different societies at 
work, meaning those in the home lands, we 
have already noted that some set forth the 
ideal of indigenous churches. But even the 
workers of these societies did not always enter 
into the spirit of that ideal. There were times 
too when the societies most praiseworthy in 
their efforts to start truly indigenous churches 
overestimated the ability of the people they 
had been training. For example, the Chris- 
tian Missionary Society withdrew too soon on 
the Niger, the Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel in parts of South India and 
Burma, the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 
South Africa, the London Missionary Society 
in British Guiana. Robinson cites these 
cases. To them we may add the early with- 
drawal of the American Board from Hawaii 
and the mistake of the Christian Missionary 
Society in reducing too rapidly the number 
of missionaries in South India, already noted. 
It would be strange if we had no mistakes of 
86 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


this kind, and though one cannot help noting: 
that it was quite often the societies that were 
emphasizing the indigenous character of the 
churches that made the mistake, there must 
in all fairness too be the admission that their 
work must have been of a high order to bring 
them to the question of withdrawal at all, for 
the great majority of the missions in this 
period never got their churches to the place 
where they had to think about withdrawing. 
The general policy of the society must, there- 
fore, be reckoned as one of the factors, but 
not the only factor, in the building up of 
indigenous churches in this period. 

A very good case to illustrate the variation 
in the working of the same policy in different 
fields by different missionaries and in different 
ways is that of the Christian Missionary Soci- 
ety. In South India there was too sudden a 
break away from the missionary supervision, 
and retardation resulted. In the North 
another way of working out the policy was 
tried with success. In West Africa there was 
too much haste. In Uganda, the last of the 
fields we are considering, the mistake of put- 
ting the national ahead too fast was not made. 
There the basis was self-support and a great 
measure of autonomy, and the greatest suc- 
cess was there attained. 

87 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


Without the development of the church in 
self-consciousness any moves evidently ought 
to be slow. In the cases mentioned the mis- 
sionary was the one in a hurry. In Japan 
where there was a high degree of self-respect, 
the churches themselves sought for autonomy. 
Self-respect and a national consciousness pre- 
ceded the change in Japan. This factor is a 
vital one. 

Not only the policy of societies and the self- 
respect of the churches, but also the personal- 
ity and the policy of the missionary on the 
field were most vital in the development. 
Without a Wheeler where would self-support 
have been in the Near East, or without Abbott 
and his successors in Burma, what would the 
church have become? Korea, Manchuria, and 
many other fields that developed strong 
churches largely owe their success to the deter- 
mined, far-seeing policy of the missionaries. 

In all these factors we see the work of the 
Holy Spirit. He worked through the Boards, 
the missionaries, and the hearts of the people 
won to Christ, striving to develop bodies of 
Christians to carry on the work of Christ. 


SUMMARY 


The period from 1800 to 1910, not only from 
the point of view of the success of the propax 
88 : 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


gation of the gospel, but from the viewpoint of 
the development of indigenous churches, is 
nothing short of marvelous. It rose in many 
fields from zero to the boiling point. The 
Spirit moved men and women to go one by 
one and two by two, knowing little of condi- 
tions and of methods. But they buried their 
lives in service and there sprang up bands of 
Christians just as in the early days. Before 
the end of the period we have churches in 
many lands with many of the characteristics 
of indigenous churches. There was too a draw- 
ing together of many bodies of Christians who 
found, despite differences of polity and doc- 
trine, that their task was one. The varying 
methods and different problems were being 
recognized more and more as requiring a thor- 
ough overhauling that the overlapping and the 
waste might be eliminated and that all might 
learn from the experience of one another what 
methods were best for carrying on to a suc- 
cessful end the great task the Master left for 
us to do. Out of all this came the Edinburgh 
Conference in 1910. 


4. FroM THE EDINBURGH CONFERENCE TO THE 
PRESENT 


The Edinburgh Conference marks the begin- 
ning of a new epoch. It signifies the real 
89 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


beginning of a world-wide cooperation between 
the different missionary societies of the Prot- 
estant denominations. Before 1910 there 
were scattered efforts to get together, but since 
then that has been the universal watchword. 
Comity, union movements, federations have all 
seen great developments. There were many 
half-recognized and half-believed policies that 
since Edinburgh have become axiomatic. The 
Protestant world is now coming to see what 
its task really is and how to go about it. 

In the first place the idea of the indigenous 
church was clearly set forth as the kind ‘of 
church the missionary should strive to pro- 
mote. F. Schwager, S. V. D., makes a point 
of the difference between the Roman Catholic 
and the Protestant views. He quotes the 
Protestant view as expressed at Edinburgh: 

The aim of Christian missionaries should be 
not to transplant to any country in which they 
labor that form or type of Christianity which is 
prevalent in the lands from which they come, but 
to lodge in the hearts of the people the funda- 
mental truths of Christianity, in the confidence 
that these are fitted for all nations and classes, 
and will bear their own appropriate and beneficial 
fruits in a type of Christian life and institution 
consonant with the genius of each of the several 
nations. To this end, emphasis on the distinctive 
views of any one branch of the Christian Church, 
when it is not imperatively demanded by fidelity 

90 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


to what is deemed a vital truth, should be avoided 
in favor of a simple and elemental presentation 
of fundamental truth. 


In contrast to this he states the Roman Cath- 
olic position: 

Roman Catholic missionaries regard themselves 
as bound in their preaching by the saying of our 
Lord, “Teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I command you.” This applies to dogmas 
of the church and does not distinguish important 
from others. All are equally valuable so far as 
we are concerned for teaching them.? 


To the Roman Catholic the true Christ is the 
Christ of the church. To the Protestant he 
is the Christ known in the New Testament and 
experienced by the believer. The Church of 
Rome is imperial, and for that reason in these 
modern democratic times of all times it can- 
not develop truly indigenous churches. They 
must always in the last analysis lean upon 
Rome. The weakness of this type of Chris- 
tianity on the mission fields we have already 
pointed out. At Edinburgh Protestantism 
faced the issue. There were cries from many 
quarters that there was “a tendency especially 
in certain lands and districts, to denational- 
ize converts, that is, to alienate them from the 

International Review of Missions, 1914, p. 492. Used by 


permission. 
*Ibid., p. 492. 


91 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


life and sympathies of their fellow country- 
men, so as to make it possible to suggest that 
Christianity is a foreign influence, tending to 
alienate its converts from the national life.’ 
In Chapter II there were cited complaints 
that the missionary did not take the national 
into his confidence and that the church was 
a foreign church. The Edinburgh Conference 
left with the leaders of the missionary move- 
ment the conviction that these complaints 
should be heeded and that accordingly the 
churches on the foreign field should be made 
self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagat- 
ing, and in all other respects a natural expres- 
sion of the religious nature of the people, 
rather than a copy of what the missionary had 
seen in his native land. 

A natural corollary to the main proposition 
of the indigenous church idea was this: since 
church forms are not vital, but only funda- 
mental truths, why should two bodies of 
Christians be working in the same territory in 
opposition to each other? This question led 
to the real practice of comity throughout the 
world. In Japan directly after the Edinburgh 
Conference a commission was appointed on 
the distribution of forces. In South America 





*World Missionary Conference, Commission II, p. 6. 
Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 


92 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


relations had previously been inharmonious, 
but the Regional Conferences following the 
Edinburgh Conference ironed out the differ- 
ences, and by 1921 all South America was 
reported as working well together. In Mexico 
one mission, the Presbyterian, moved its whole 
force from the north to the south. In India 
by one adjustment 15,000 Christians were 
transferred from the Methodist to the Presby- 
terian Church. In China the principles of 
comity were set forth in 1913 and in 1923 
almost universal acceptance of these prin- 
ciples was reported. In the Philippines in 
1901 the Protestants had agreed on a division 
of territory, and in Madagascar soon after the 
Edinburgh Conference. Still other adjust- 
ments were made, some of them long-standing 
differences. In 1912 African Missions seemed 
far from the practice of comity, particularly 
in the cities, but some progress has been made 
since in the Kikuyu Conferences in 1913 and 
- 1918 and in North Nigeria. The irresponsi- 
bility of Africans caused some breaches of 
comity. The Seventh-Day Adventists share 
with the Salvation Army the charge of violat- 
ing the rules of comity. But despite these 
irregularities, the situation throughout the 
world in the matter of comity is infinitely 
better than it was fourteen years ago. 
93 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


The next step after comity is united effort. 
This too was not first thought of after Edin- 
burgh. In the years before that Conference 
a number of cases of union and cooperation 
have been noticed. Since then the spirit of 
united effort has grown wonderfully. Start- 
ing with Japan, though in that country there 
has been no movement toward organic union, 
the Christians of Japan have drawn closer 
together. Not only have various missions of 
similar polity become federated, but also five 
unions in theological education have been 
achieved. There is still, however, great need 
of getting together in this field, as, including 
the schools for women, there are still thirty- 
one theological and Bible schools, whereas five 
ought to suffice. In 1911 a federation of eight 
of the leading churches was formed to pro- 
mote common action in social and moral 
questions and in evangelistic work, besides 
other matters of mutual interest. A further 
step was taken in 1922 when the Continuation 
Committee that had been functioning for some 
years called a National Christian Conference; 
120 delegates from the churches and 70 mis- 
sionaries from 24 missions met in May. At — 
this Conference a National Christian Council 
was asked for. It was proposed that it have 
100 members—51 Japanese, 34 missionaries, 

94 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


and 15 coopted by the 85 already named. 
This council was to have no authority in doc- 
trine or ecclesiastical affairs, no legislative 
functions, but was to foster fellowship and 
unity throughout Japan and the world, to 
serve as a medium for the churches as a whole 
to speak on social and religious matters, to 
make surveys and to do various other coopera- 
tive work. Favorable action has already been 
taken by a number of the churches and mis- 
sions, and it is expected that others will 
follow. 

In Formosa the Presbyterian bodies have 
formed one “Presbyterian Church of Christ in 
Formosa.” In Chosen (the new name of 
Korea) division of territory has been made 
among the missions, union in a number of edu- 
cational institutions, notably Chosen Chris- 
tian College with five missions participating, 
achieved ; since 1917 Chosen has had a Korean 
Church Council, and now there is a movement 
to unite this with the Federated Council of 
Evangelical Missions. 

In the Philippines there are at present a 
number of agencies of a union nature, liter- 
ary, medical work, and a Union Bible Semi- 
nary (five bodies participating). The Fili- 
pinos themselves desire a united church. 

In China the progress toward union has far 

95 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


surpassed that in Japan in the last thirteen 
years. To list the number of institutions that 
are run on a union basis would approach a 
catalogue in length. In 1917 the number was 
given as forty-three. Five large Union Uni- 
versities strategically located, seven strong 
theological seminaries, one of which (Canton) 
has eight denominations participating, and 
the fact that in theological education union 
work is strongest with general education 
second and medical work third, shows the 
remarkable advance that the Missions in 
China have made toward union. In addition 
there have been union evangelistic campaigns 
of city-wide scope, union in Sunday-school and 
publishing work and the getting together in 
sectional associations for educational work 
and nationally for medical work. Next come 
the church unions. The Independent Chinese 
churches have two organizations. In some of 
the large cities the churches of all denomina- 
tions have organized for social and evangelis- 
tic work. In Kuangtung, Southern Fukien, 
and Hupeh Provinces all the churches of 
Presbyterian type and the American Board 
and the London Missionary Society type of 
churches have united in what may be called 
a divisional council of the proposed United 
Church of all China. In September, 1920, a 
96 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


constitution was formed by forty-three Chinese 
and six missionaries for all the churches of 
Kansu Province. Nationwide unions too have 
been formed. In 1912 the Anglican bodies had 
united and formed a general synod. In 1918 
twelve missions of the American, German and 
Scandinavian Lutherans entered into an 
organic union. The Methodist Episcopals 
(North) every four years hold an East Asia 
Conference, at present embracing only China 
and Chosen. But the largest union of all, if 
ratified, will grow out of the union of ten 
Presbyterian bodies in 1918 into a Provisional 
General Assembly. ‘At that time the British 
and American Congregationalists expressed a 
desire for federation looking toward organic 
union. One year later complete agreement as 
to doctrinal basis was secured, a temporary 
plan of union drawn up and the matter 
referred to the Home Boards. If the plan is 
voted down, there is still a united Presbyterian 
Church in Central and North China besides 
the Presbyterian-Congregational unions al- 
ready mentioned. Other bodies have as yet 
done little or nothing toward any large union, 
though much has been said and written. 
Very significant too are the national move- 
ments such as the “China for Christ’? Move- 
ment, launched in December, 1919, at Shang- 
97 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


hai by some hundred leading Chinese Chris- 
tians and missionaries. This was followed in 
1922 by a National Christian Conference sum- 
moned by the China Continuation Committee, 
bringing together from practically all the com- 
munions in China about one thousand dele- 
gates. Of these over one half were Chinese, 
and a Chinese leader, Dr. C. Y. Cheng, was 
chosen chairman. Out of this gathering came 
a National Christian Council, with the major- 
ity of its members Chinese and with duties 
similar to those of the proposed Council in 
Japan. The China Council has already begun 
to function. 

India, well started on the road toward union 
before 1910, particularly in the South, has 
continued to progress; but, outside of a few 
educational consolidations, the advance made 
has been in the character of the negotiations 
rather than in any accomplished union of sig- 
nificant character. In 1919, following a con- 
ference of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
and the South India United Church, at which 
a basis of union and a constitution was drawn 
up, twenty-three ministers of the Anglican and 
the South India United Church had a meeting 
at which union was proposed. Soon after, the 
Malabar Suffragan, of the Mar Thoma Syrian 
Church, issued an informal statement that he 

98 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


and others of his communion were prepared 
to take steps for further union on the lines of 
the meeting just mentioned. There has as yet 
been no final outcome of these gatherings. 
Meantime the National Missionary Council of 
India has become the National Christian Coun- 
cil of India, Burma, and Ceylon with at least 
one half of its membership made up of na- 
tionals. This Council will function on the 
lines of the similar organizations in Japan 
and China. 

In Africa no large union organization as in 
the fields already noted could be expected, 
because of the difficulties of transportation 
and the many different political divisions, but 
in Madagascar a Continuation Commitee was 
organized soon after the Edinburgh Confer- 
ence. Under the influence of “the spirit of 
Edinburgh” a union normal school has been 
established for all seven bodies working on 
the island and in theological education and 
missionary work there are other unions, 
though not such comprehensive ones as the 
normal school. In East, South and Central 
Africa some union in theological work has 
come and union of churches too, and in West 
Africa (North Nigeria) a Continuation Com- 
mittee. But the most important move of all 
has been the 1913 and 1918 Kikuyu Confer- 

99 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ences, at which six bodies of widely differing 
church polity met, and though they recognized 
that intercommunion between episcopal and 
nonepiscopal missions was not yet possible, 
they formed an alliance with mutual relations 
and aims, agreeing among other things to 
respect each others’ spheres, foster union, and 
each respect the other’s decisions in discipline. 
A doctrinal statement formed the basis of the 
alliance, a representative council of mission- 
aries was formed with advisory relation, and 
provision was made for African participation. 

Great advance in Latin America followed 
the Regional Conferences of 1912-18 and a 
later Conference in Mexico. By 1922 there 
were Union Theological Seminaries in the City 
of Mexico (seven bodies uniting), in Porto 
Rico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil (four 
bodies), besides other educational unions and 
union in literary work. Many other union 
schemes have been approved but not yet 
worked out. 

Thus we see the missionaries and the 
churches on the fields, with the Presbyterians 
taking the most active part, drawing closer 
together in that Christian fellowship that is 
characteristic of really indigenous churches. 

In the years since Edinburgh there has also 
been phenomenal progress in many fields in 

100 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


the self-consciousness of the churches. In 
measuring this progress a review of their 
expression in respect to the following matters 
is in order: 

1. Self-support. 

2. Autonomy. 

3. Evangelism. 

4, Social expression. 

There is no question that great advances 
have been made in the giving of the churches 
of the mission fields. Not only increased 
numbers but an increase in the sense of respon- 
sibility have been leading factors. Many indi- 
vidual churches on practically all the fields 
have become self-supporting. Some missions, 
as in Samoa, have attained, but probably 
more attained before the Edinburgh Confer- 
ence than since. 

The increase in educational work during the 
past few years has stayed the arrival at thor- 
oughgoing self-support, that is, support not 
only of local churches but also the educational 
work of the mission. On account of the expan- 
sion of the activities of missionary work the 
churches are often further behind than ever, 
when we consider the whole work. For ex- 
ample, in Japan, where the Church of Christ 
(Presbyterian) and the Kumiai (Congrega- 
tional) Churches are self-supporting, yet their 

101 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


educational work is largely supported from 
abroad. The same is true in large measure 
among other bodies and on other fields. In 
the International Review of Missions for July, 
1923, G. H. Williams writes, 

There can be no question whatever that the 
Indian Christian community will not for many a 


long day be able either to finance or to administer 
the work of Christian education. 


Yet self-support has been pushed in educa- 
tion by the raising of fees, and in some fields 
the schools have advanced to self-support. 
But in many other fields, especially where pov- 
erty is extreme, for example, South India, the 
higher the education, the more difficult the 
matter of support. In some fields where self- 
support had been a success it has become a 
problem because of higher education. In 
Uganda, for instance, it has become difficult 
to get men of high intellectual attainment for 
the ministry because of the inadequate pay 
offered by the churches, which are on a self- 
support basis. This difficulty is increased 
where nationals can get high pay working for 
foreigners. 

The rise in the standard of living and also 
the rise in prices have kept back many 
churches that otherwise might have arrived 


“Used by permission, 


102 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


at self-support. Many are no nearer propor- 
tionately than they were ten years ago, though 
giving twice as much now as then. Some are 
further from self-support. This has produced 
in many lands the situation described in a 
recent report of conditions in one mission in 
Japan: 

We have been unable to employ graduates of 
our theological school, and these men have taken 
secular positions at more than twice the salary 


they would have received as catechists and clergy- 
men. 


As regards methods and results a given 
board has not always used the same methods on 
different fields, and where two boards on the 
same general field have used different methods 
there have been sometimes somewhat different 
results, but so many factors enter in that gen- 
eralizing is often unsafe. Missions working in 
the same general section of the field seem to 
have about the same response in the matter of 
support. In China, for example, Amoy, 
Swatow, Foochow, and Canton, regardless of 
mission, stand first in self-support for China. 
As already noticed, there are striking excep- 
tions, but this holds pretty generally as the 
rule. Many missions have adopted a sliding 


*Protestant Episcopal Missions, Annual Report, 1919, p. 
208. 


103 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


scale for self-support, proportionately reduc- 
ing their grant year by year until at the end 
of five or ten years the church is self-support- 
ing. Other missions have made grants to the 
churches conditional on what the church gives. 
Human nature the world over is much the 
same. People will not help themselves if 
others will help them, unless their self-respect 
is very strong. Self-support has accordingly 
been a most unwelcome bone of contention for 
all societies. 

We have, then, as far as self-support is con- 
cerned, no such advance as we have noted in 
comity and union work. The rise in educa- 
tional standards, in living standards, and in 
prices has, for the time being, at any rate, 
administered a decided check to the prospects 
of entirely self-supporting churches on the for-_ 
eign fields. 

Self-government, however, which presup- 
poses mental ability, an adequate self-respect, 
and ofttimes a strong nationalistic feeling, has 
forged ahead with almost bewildering rapidity 
in the past twelve or thirteen years. Of the 
outstanding large fields China and India show 
the most remarkable progress. 

In India, with early pressure on the part of 
the educated members of the church for more 
authority, there have been many developments, 

104 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


a considerable part of which started before 
the Edinburgh Conference. 

In the American Methodist work the vest- 
ing of authority in the Annual Conferences, 
the fact that the Methodists have been more 
ready to ordain men than other missions have 
(this on the testimony of a Presbyterian), and 
that, once ordained, an Indian has the same 
voting power as the foreigner, have all made 
for the smooth transfer.of power from the for- 
eign missionary to the Indian. The only real 
point where friction could come has been that, 
though the Indians have been in the majority 
in the Conferences, still they have not been in 
a majority on the Finance Committees which 
handle the money from America. But this 
difficulty is being overcome by the increase of 
the number.of Indians on these committees. 

The Anglican societies have worked a par- 
allel administration, (1) the Indian Churches 
organized into District Councils with a mis- 
sionary at the head, and (2) the mission car- 
rying on the educational work and all evan- 
gelistic work outside of the local church 
organizations and the Indian missionary soci- 
eties, using an Indian staff under foreign con- 
trol. Out of this state of affairs, which of late 
years has become impossible, because of the 
restiveness of the Indians under foreign con- 

105 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


trol, the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in the Telugu field has changed the 
complexion of the chief governing body from 
all missionary to twelve Indians and four 
Europeans, and the Bishop of Madras has 
asked the Indian Bishop of Dornakal to pre- 
side. In the punjab the Church Missionary 
Society has united the Mission and the Indian 
Council in one body under the Bishop of 
Lahore. A further move in the Church Mis- 
sionary Society work toward devolution was 
made in February, 1923, when the matter was 
placed in the hands of a Committee of Refer- 
ence and it was provided that the government 
of the dioceses be democratic. The Home 
Society under this plan still renders financial 
assistance to the dioceses. 

Several bodies of the Presbyterian type have 
followed the policy of gradually increasing 
the responsibility of the Indians, working 
through Presbytery, Assembly, or Synod. The 
United Free Church of Scotland Mission in 
West India has a Board of ten Indians and 
three foreigners, all responsible to the Pres- 
bytery. What is known as the Arcot Assembly 
has taken over from the Arcot Mission entire 
control. The Assembly is a joint body repre- 
senting both the Church and the Mission. The 
Presbyterian General Assembly in 1915 

106 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


already had thirty-five of sixty-three members 
Indians and the Moderator an Indian. In the 
South India United Church the majority in 
the General Assembly are always Indians. 

In the Congregational bodies, the turning 
over of responsibilities has, like the Presbyter- 
ian, been gradual. The first steps were often 
to ask Indians to sit in the council of the mis- 
sionaries, next to take a part in the proceed- 
ings, gradually increasing the number of 
Indians, and turning over one responsibility 
after another, but running the Mission and the 
Church separately and with the Mission still 
controlling the funds. When the individual 
churches, whether Baptist, London Missionary 
Society or American Board, became self-sup- 
porting, they became independent. Some at- 
tempts to draw them together into associa- 
tions and, where it seemed advisable, allow- 
ing them to share in the plans of the Mission, 
have been worked. This also applies to the 
situation in Burma. 

The leaders of the Indian Churches, seeing 
that the Government has given more import- 
ant posts to Indians, have not been satisfied 
with the treatment they have been accorded in 
the churches. Though many modifications 
have been made, complete control has not been 
transferred. The Indians do not want to be 

107 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


under Europeans, and it is very galling to the 
Indian to have the financial control in the 
hands of the Europeans. At an informal 
gathering at Allahabad in April, 1919, several 
well-known missionaries and leading Indian 
Christians gave out their findings, part of 
which were (1) the growing tension between 
mission and church and (2) a fundamental 
breach, made acute because the missionary is 
of the dominant and too often domineering 
race. Though since then several years have 
passed, and many concessions have been 
granted, the situation is still very acute for 
many sections of the work. 

In China the same lines set forth in the 
situation in India with regard to the church 
and mission status hold true. The church 
stands for the organized bodies of Chinese 
Christians. The mission pays out subsidies to 
the church and employs Chinese in educa- 
tional, medical, and evangelistic work. The 
same may be said for all the fields, with the 
exception of the Methodist body and a few 
other bodies which have not made such a dis- 
tinction between the functions of mission and 
church; but even in the Methodist work 
nationals have often felt that the funds were 
too much in the hands of the foreigners. 

Many autonomous churches, some independ- 

108 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


ent of any connection with any mission organi- 
zation and known as independent Chinese 
churches, others closely related to the mis- 
sions and depending on and taking an active 
interest in the mission, such as the schools and 
the medical and evangelistic work, are the two 
divisions to be noted. In this second class we 
have for example the South China Mission of 
the American Baptists, the Assembly of God 
in Kansu, which, starting with missionary con- 
trol, in September, 1923, gave the Chinese 
eighty per cent of the governing power, the 
North China work of the American Board 
which has a Council composed of three for- 
eigners and eight Chinese, the Foochow Con- 
gregational Mission, where church and mis- 
sion are separate with an Association commit- 
tee usually one half Chinese, also the North 
China and Shantung Missions of the Pres- 
byterians, which depend upon an equal number 
of Chinese and foreigners to administer their 
foreign funds, besides the larger bodies as the 
United Churches of Fukien, Kuangtung, Man- 
churia, Hupeh, and the Union of the Presby- 
terian bodies, the union of Lutherans, and that 
of the Anglicans who have made the move of 
consecrating a Chinese assistant bishop in the 
Diocese of Chekiang. In the Methodist Epis- 
copal (North) missions in China not only the 
109 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


Annual Conferences have passed over by vir- 
tue of a majority of numbers to the control of 
the Chinese, but also the All China Finance 
Committee which handles the finances has a 
majority of Chinese members. The same holds 
good of the Finance Committees elected by 
and responsible to the Annual Conferences. 

With many organizations far from these 
advanced stages the general situation in China 
is well summed up in the two following quo- 
tations: 

In practically two thirds of China the leader- 
ship is still largely in the hands of the foreign 
missionary, who alone receives converts into 
church membership and administers the sacra- 
ments. 

In the main it might be said that the present 


is the period of joint control with Chinese leader- 
ship becoming more prominent.? 


In Japan, while there were already inde- 
pendent churches and the general situation 
has during this whole period been far beyond 
China and India in point of autonomous deyel- 
opment, there have still been missions work- 
ing. Although some of the Methodist mis- 
sionaries worked in the church organization 
except in publication and educational work, 





*The Chinese Church as Revealed in the National Chris- 
tian Conference of 1922, 1923, p. 102. 
*The Christian Occupation of China. 


110 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


the Presbyterian and Congregational bodies 
of missionaries were working outside also in 
evangelistic work. In 1922 a great advance 
was made in unifying the work and taking 
the Japanese into a share of control of the 
work of the missions. The Baptists and Pres- 
byterians took the Japanese in on equal terms, 
and the Congregationalists gave the Japanese 
the controlling power, even in the appointment 
of the missionaries. The Anglican bodies 
also transferred all control, in the same year, 
to the Japanese and in 1923 consecrated two 
Japanese bishops. The Methodists had had a 
bishop since 1907. Other missions showed 
similar progress. 

In the Philippines the Presbyterian mis- 
sionaries granted the church complete separa- 
tion in 1914, and it has since been the “Evyan- 
gelical Church of the Philippines.” 

In Chosen there are two Korean Presby- 
teries, self-governing under a Korean General 
Assembly. The Methodist work is the same 
with its Annual Conferences. 

In all South America the sentiment for self- 
government has been very strong. In Brazil 
one Presbyterian church has been entirely 
independent in government and support, and 
the other also, except for grants-in-aid which 
are cut ten per cent each year. In Chile there 

111 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


are Chileans in the Annual Conference and 
members of the Finance Committee in the 
Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian 
Church Presbytery is composed largely of 
Chileans, and they have a vote in the distribu- 
tion of funds. The Presbytery frequently has 
a Chilean president. Educational work, how- 
ever, is still largely in the hands of the for- 
eigners. 

A number of moves have been made toward 
devolution in various parts of Africa. In 
Basutoland the Paris Society has its Assembly 
more than half African; the Moravians have 
surrendered the temporal administration to a 
committee elected by Africans; in Uganda the 
Church Missionary Society Church Councils 
have been composed of a majority of Africans 
and the Bishop has not been known to over- 
ride their decisions. Now three of twelve large 
districts are supervised by Africans. In West 
Equatorial Africa, as well as in the Yoruba 
country and on the Niger, provisional Church 
Councils have been found successful, and two 
African assistant bishops have been ordained. 
Other societies with long-established work 
have made similar advances. The evangelistic 
zeal and pastoral work in some stations in 
Madagascar have made hopeful the entire 
transfer of work to the Malagasy Church very 

112 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


soon. But the generations of no literary cul- 
ture on the one hand and the domination of 
the whites on the other throughout Africa are 
serious hindrances to complete self-govern- 
ment. It will take a long time and much train- 
ing to develop that ripeness of character and 
that firmly grounded and genuine self-respect 
which will make the Negro, not now and then, 
but as a rule, the administrative equal of the 
white man. 

Self-government is the aim that the mis- 
sionary in many fields has consciously had for 
the past decade or more. The results we have 
noted in the various fields. Many fields are 
far behind what has here been set forth. Those 
recorded here are only some of the outstand- 
ing movements. The prospects for the future 
evidently depend upon Christian education 
which will develop not only a Christian type 
of religion, but also a real sense of responsi- 
bility and ability to assume it. We have seen 
that as soon as education is well grounded, the 
converts to Christianity develop a desire to 
manage their own church, but where they are 
still partly submerged in the illiteracy of their 
past, they have no such desire. This state of 
affairs may be said to be true of every mission 
field without exception. 

The amount of missionary work undertaken 

. 113 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


by the churches on the fields and its success, 
are also a witness to the genuinely indigenous 
character of the faith in the hearts of these 
noble Christian brothers and sisters. It is 
impossible to do more than cite some of the 
more striking cases. The Samoan Church, 
besides maintaining 192 ordained and 260 
unordained preachers, has sent 5,000 pounds 
sterling to London for missionary work in 
other lands. “A vigorous and successful home- 
mission work is maintained by the Presbytery 
of Manila on the Island of Mindoro.”! In 
Brazil a group of Christians commissioned one 
of their best-trained preachers to carry the 
message of salvation back to the mother coun- 
try. In another part of Latin America a group 
organized a missionary society and for a num- 
ber of years has been carrying on work in two 
different countries. The Christian bodies of 
Porto Rico have united in sending two mis- 
sionaries to Santo Domingo. In West Equa- 
torial Africa Christian traders have yolun- 
tarily spread their religion. The churches 
founded support their own teachers and build 
their own places of worship. In South Africa 
there are eighteen small self-sown missions 
founded by laborers from the Rand. In Burma 
the churches, uniting in “The Burman Mission 


*Annual Report Presbyterian Missions, 1922, p. 56. 
114 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


Conference,” have gone so far as to appoint a 
full-time secretary. In India native music has 
been used largely in evangelistic efforts and 
women have actively participated in evangelis- 
tic work. In one field (the Telugu) even non- 
christians have cooperated in the work. The 
National Missionary Society, established in 
1905, had in 1911 over 400 branches organized, 
was publishing six journals, and had 26 agents 
working in five different language areas. In 
China the “Christian General” Feng has been 
used to win his officers and men to the num- 
ber of nearly 10,000. The Anglican Church 
Mission to Shensi, begun in 1915, had in 1919 
a budget of $5,500 and has been doing success- 
ful work. In 1920 there were reported in 
China 25 home missionary societies raising 
between $10,000 and $15,000 almost entirely 
from Chinese sources. In 1918 a nation-wide 
missionary movement with the Province of 
Yunnan as its field was organized and has met 
with good results. The Koreans, both Meth- 
odists and Presbyterians, have sent three mis- 
sionaries to Shantung Province in China, and 
wherever they have gone as laymen, whether 
to Manchuria, Siberia, Mexico or the isles of 
the sea, they have spread the gospel. The 
Kumiai Churches sent their first missionary 
to Chosen in 1904. In 1922 there were 143 
115 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


organized congregations with 14,000 members 
(including 6,000 associate members), and the 
Korean Church had become independent. Lay- 
men’s missionary organizations have been a 
feature not only of the Kumiai, but of other 
churches as well. From these and the numer- 
ous other missionary agencies not mentioned 
here one can see that the type of Christianity 
being propagated in our day is a vital one. 

A number of changes in emphasis are to be 
noted in the past twelve or thirteen years. In 
general, they take the forms (1) of more inten- 
sive evangelistic work, and (2) of enlarging 
the activities of the work. Social activity, 
education of a general nature and of a tech- 
nical character, as industrial, agricultural, 
and professional as normal and theological, 
institutional churches, attempts to reach the 
educated classes, are all features that one can 
see at a glance are vital in building up a strong 
ministry and a laity that can develop strong 
indigenous churches. 

In Japan and China particularly the 
churches have been active for the good of soci- 
ety and in nearly all lands the Christians have 
caught the vision of a transformed society and 
the part the Church of Christ has in bringing 
it about. The efforts of the Christian churches 
in Osaka kept that city from granting a sec- 

116 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


tion of territory to licensed vice. In Canton 
their petition secured the government prohi- 
bition of gambling. The National Council of 
the Christian Churches of China has spoken 
for better working conditions in industry, and 
various city Church Unions have taken up the 
matter too. In China alone there are reported 
to be over seventeen institutional churches. 
Great attention has been paid to education. 
Dr. C. Y. Cheng has said regarding the devel- 
opment of an indigenous church in China, 


In our opinion it can only be effectively done 
by means of education. There seems to be no 
short cut to a success that is real and lasting.? 


To handle the mass movement in India, says 
Dr. G. H. Williams, “The only salvation of 
the church is by education.”? Missions that 
were backward in education have been striy- 
ing to catch up. Educational Commissions, 
composed of representative educators, have 
visited the fields and laid out programs for the 
unifying and advancement of educational 
work. The standards of theological education 
have been raised, and normal, agricultural and 
industrial schools have been opened, particu- 
larly in China, India, and Africa. 

International Review of Missions, 1923, p. 59. Used by 
permission. 

*Ibid., pp. 342-3, 

117 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


The work has become truly hundred-handed. 
The effort to reach the educated classes is seen 
in the great Eddy and Mott student meetings 
held throughout the East in the large cities, 
and the expansion of the work of the Y. W. 
C. A. and the Y. M. C. A. New emphasis on 
work for women, Bible study, Christian stew- 
ardship, the wide distribution of New Testa- 
ment portions and other literature, newspaper 
evangelism (in Japan), intensive evangelistic 
campaigns with great stress on personal work 
carried on in a dozen different ways, the 
nation-wide observance of a Week of Evan- 
gelism (in China), concentration of effort on 
a smaller area than formerly, sometimes lead- 
ing to the entire withdrawal of a mission’s 
forces from a field, massing of evangelistic 
forces on a given point and many other signs 
of thorough work, have characterized this 
period. 


SuMMARY 


Thus we see since the Edinburgh Conference 
not only the Christian churches in the home 
lands rousing themselves anew to the task, 
the Boards pulling together with better under- 
standing of the work to be done and with a 
strong spirit of fellowship, but also churches 
on the foreign fields that have, so far as their 

118 


HISTORICAL SURVEY 


leaders are concerned, expressed in no uncer- 
tain terms their eagerness to take charge of 
their own churches and their longing for the 
day when they shall not only be free from all 
foreign control, but may also be strong enough 
to assume their own financial support. They 
want, moreover, for the most part (China, 
India, the Philippines, and parts of Africa) 
united churches, and all desire churches that 
shall express Christianity in their own 
national terms. Lacking, however, sufficient 
leadership and means on the part of their 
churches, they recognize the necessity of still 
using European and American leadership in 
education and finance for some time to come. 


119 


CHAPTER IV 
INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 
1. INTRODUCTION 


Factors WHICH CONDITION THE WORK OF 
MISSIONS 


A. Those External to the Church 


Wuart the old Hebrew prophet wrote about 
casting idols to the bats and to the moles is 
really being fulfilled these days in the lands 
that are awakening to the truths of the gos- 
pel. The passion for science in the lands of 
the Far East has led men to scoff at super- 
stitions and even to question the value of 
any religion at all. Prominent educators, such 
as the chancellor of the Government Uni- 
versity in Peking and many other leaders in 
the Chinese Renaissance or New Thought 
Movement, are avowed atheists and the great 
majority of the students follow in their train. 
In China an antireligion organization has 
been formed. In Japan the last religious 
census of the Imperial University at Tokyo 
showed agnostics, 2,989; atheists, 1,511: 
Christians, 60; Buddhists, 49; Shintoists, 9, 

120 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


These figures show what the teaching of 
science has done to the old religions. In 
China, Latin America, and, to a large extent, 
India, government schools would, so far as 
the number of atheists and agnostics as 
against men of some religious belief is con- 
cerned, approximate these figures. The 
young men of these universities will be the 
predominant influence in government, in edu- 
cation, and in the development of a national 
culture. To meet such a situation, the man 
who lacks the modern scientific viewpoint is 
like a flintlock on a twentieth century battle 
field. Men must be trained to meet these 
future leaders on their own ground. Old 
theology, antiquated terminology need to be 
changed for terms that put real, present, un- 
mistakable life into religious concepts. To 
make religion appeal to these men as the sine 
qua non, it must be stripped of all that denies 
the findings of modern science. The essence 
of Christianity, the compelling character of 
Jesus and his ideal of whole-souled love to 
God and man, his power to revive and in- 
spire—in short, the kind of Christianity Abra- 
ham Lincoln approved of and lived, must be 
presented. This means that much that is dear 
to us from its sacred associations, because it 
seems to them inconsistent with or irrelevant 
to the truths they are learning, cannot be 
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NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


forced upon or even wisely urged upon them 
as essential. Some would lay this situation 
to the effects of modern destructive criticism ; 
but it goes deeper than that; it is the com- 
mendable spirit of our time that is not con- 
tent, as men formerly were, to guess and ac- 
cept what they were told of religion without 
testing it themselves. The man who is willing 
to let every truth be put to scientific test and 
who makes that a condition of the religion he 
proclaims, is the only man who will to-day 
get a hearing among the educated classes on 
the foreign mission fields. 

How else can one meet them? The writer 
was once having a friendly chat with a Mo- 
hammedan cleric. We found much in com- 
mon but we naturally found disagreements 
too. At last what happened to Jesus came to 
the fore. Our Scriptures say he was crucified. 
His deny it. I suggested that the way to find 
the truth was to investigate the sources. He 
came back in a flash that it couldn’t be done, 
as the Koran had been given to Mohammed 
straight from heaven. There was no use in 
my citing the good Christianity has done, for 
he could have answered it with the good Mo- 
hammedanism has done and also much evil 
that has been done in the name of Christ. In 
the scientific viewpoint lay the solution of 
our difficulty. His,ground made impossible 

122 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


an approach to the modern student. The stu- 
dent, on the contrary, is willing to take the 
common viewpoint of science, and one honestly 
seeking truth can be convinced. 

Besides the scientific viewpoint among the 
educated classes, there is the comparatively 
new spirit of nationalism already noticed and 
the belief in democracy throughout the world, 
which makes the national of every country, 
when aroused by education or by other con- 
tact with the modern tides of thought, assert 
that his country ought to have freedom and 
ought not to be imposed upon by any other 
country simply because that country is more 
powerful than his in armed force, and he 
asserts also his right as a man to equality 
with any other man, no matter of what nation 
or race. There was a time when the white 
man felt himself a better man, and other 
races to a large extent granted that he was; 
but they do not grant that any more and some 
of the whites too are coming to recognize the 
equality of mankind. By virtue of being the 
first to grasp and use the truths of modern 
science, the whites have imposed their rule 
upon other races, notably in America, Africa, 
Asia, and the isles of the sea. The mission- 
ary, being of the dominant race, was allowed 
by the national, as we have already seen in 
the previous chapters, to dominate his thought 

123 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


and manage his church. But that day is 
rapidly approaching sunset. In some fields 
sunset has come, in some it is already passed, 
and in others it is coming. It behooves the_ 
missionary to have an exit ready for his grace- 
ful retirement from the throne of temporal 
authority. It is his task too to make ready, 
as Moses did, someone to take his place, 
thoroughly equipped for the work. 

Modern industry too is making such an 
impact on the life of the peoples of the for- 
eign mission fields that a new situation is 
before us. In Africa, in India, in Japan, and 
in China there is a movement toward the 
manufacturing and mining centers. Factories 
and mines are employing the people that once 
worked on the farms in the fresh open air. 
Crowding in miserable houses, long hours in 
badly ventilated interiors, pitiably low wages, 
the exploiting of men and also of women and 
even of small boys and girls are bringing 
about a state of affairs in which physical 
powers are being destroyed, mentality stunted, 
morals are being submerged, and religious ex- 
pression crushed out. With the Christian 
churches of these lands as practically the only 
agency interested in the welfare of fellow hu- 
man beings, there is an increasing conviction 
that the burden of saving these unfortunates 
from the grinding heel of modern industry is 

124 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


one that the churches must take up. The 
attitude of the churches toward this practical 
problem is going to be a vital factor in the 
acceptance or rejection of Christianity by all 
classes of people in these countries. “By 
their fruits ye shall know them,” is the test 
folk of every land are to-day applying to 
religion. 

Only those who have lived in non-Christian 
lands can realize the pall of poverty, igno- 
rance, and the inertia of fatalism that hangs 
like a death shroud, so all pervading and so 
overwhelmingly depressing are these infiu- 
ences. While the few educated are waking up 
‘to modern ideas, there are millions upon mil- 
lions who are still wending their old-time 
way, apparently oblivious to the impending 
doom the economic situation holds for them 
and the ruin of their moral and religious ideals 
that threatens in the fast approaching over- 
throw of their long established social order. 
To arouse them, to lift them up, to start them 
in search of a Saviour, is infinitely more than 
a herculean task. They are truly like sheep 
without a shepherd. Centuries of illiteracy, 
dire poverty, the backward look, degraded so- 
cial position have deprived the great masses 
of people in these countries almost of all power 
of initiative. Without the Spirit of God it is 
impossible to make any impression upon such 

125 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


minds, for they seem dulled beyond the pos- 
sibility of arousing. 

Numerically too the task confronting the 
Christian Church is stupendous. In the past 
one hundred years and more the Protestant 
Christian missions have won a matter of 400,- 
000 or so in China. What are these among 
400,000,000? One one-thousandth. And 
China, though the largest in point of numbers, 
is but one of the fields. Whole countries, as 
Afghanistan, have yet to be entered by Chris- 
tian missionaries, not to mention the lands 
where the force of workers is ridiculously 
small. Knowing what we do of the greatness 
of the task, we should with fervor equal to 
that of the early disciples of Jesus, “pray the 
Lord of the harvest that he send forth 
laborers into his harvest.” 


B. Factors PRESENT IN THE CHURCH IN THB 
Way OF ACHIEVEMENTS 


As in the apostolic days it is mainly the 
poor that have heard with gladness the tidings 
of Jesus, but their coming to him has meant 
a big problem for the churches. In India the 
churches have literally been swamped by suc- 
cess. Mass movements there, in Africa, and 
some parts of China (the native tribes) have 
placed upon the churches a task of instruction 
which they have been quite unprepared to 

126 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


undertake. There are not enough workers. 
Taking people into the church without ade- 
quate instruction has been shown by the re- 
sults of the work of Xavier, de Nobili, and 
others to be disastrous. Even the thorough 
work of the Jesuits in Paraguay and that of 
other orders in northern Mexico and other 
parts of the world, must be set down as a 
failure, because no indigenous leadership was 
provided for. It has been proved over and 
over again that people have to be lifted a long 
way out of heathenism to keep them from 
falling back in when the missionary is re- 
moved. Madagascar is not the rule but the 
exception. The cases just mentioned, the 
work of the Dutch in Ceylon, that of the Dan- 
ish-Halle Mission in India, and instances in 
Africa, all witness to this danger. 

At the other extreme there are the self- 
respecting, wide-awake leaders of the churches 
—few indeed, but of great influence. These 
men and women are the choicest of the fruits 
of missionary work. Through their force of 
character and their lofty and uncompromising 
Christian ideals they have made in their own 
lands an impression even outside church 
circles all out of proportion to their number. 
Recently a prominent weekly in China took 
a vote of its readers on the greatest man in 
China to-day. The two getting the highest 

127 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


vote were Sun Yat Sen and Feng Yiti Hsiang, 
both Christians. In Japan the proportion of 
Christians prominent in public life is far 
greater than that of men professing other reli- 
gions. The Christian leaders, lay and clerical, 
feel that the church is theirs, not the for- 
eigners’, and that therefore they should have 
the say in all matters. They recognize the 
value of the missionaries’ contribution, but 
hold that the church is their own, and that, 
being able to control, the authority should be 
turned over to them. The main bone of con- 
tention in this talk of transfer of power from 
the missionaries to the national leaders is 
the money question. The national leaders 
feel that if the control of the funds is in the 
hands of the missionaries, they have a lever- 
age with which they control the church. In 
some way this difficulty must be settled satis- 
factorily. 

To say that the large and numerous educa- 
tional institutions, largely built with foreign 
money, are factors within the church, is a 
questionable statement, for the control of 
them is for the most part still in the hands of 
the mission; but they are so closely related to 
the life of the future church, and they must at 
some time sooner or later become a part of the 
church’s responsibility. The importance of 
these institutions lies in their work of train- 

128 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


ing the leaders and also the rank and file of 
the church. On the quality of the work of 
these institutions depends in a very large 
measure the future character of the church. 
But the financial obligation their upkeep en- 
tails and the direction of them form problems 
that for the most part have yet to be solved 
in such a way as will put them under the 
church, where they must ultimately be. 

Hospitals, leper and orphan asylums, homes 
for the blind, and other such agencies are at 
present also in the same category as the edu- 
cational institutions just mentioned. How to 
get them from the control of the mission to 
that of the church means not only much train- 
ing but also much confidence in the ability of 
the national and willingness to surrender the 
control of funds, of property, and of manage- 
ment. It is evidently a long time before con- 
trol in the main will be surrendered, and a 
longer time still before the local constituency 
can finance these institutions. 

A last but potent factor in the situation is 
the desire for united churches on the mission 
fields. Many unions consummated years ago 
by the missionaries had no interest for the 
nationals, and, as we have noted, there are 
countries where denominationalism has so 
strong a hold that there are no prospects of 
union; for example, Japan; and there are 

- 129 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


some denominations which do not desire union 
but, rather, independence or the adoption of 
their own tenets as alternatives; but in some 
lands, for example, India and China, many of 
the leaders of the church have of late been 
praying and working for united churches, and 
the same may be said of some denominations. 


Summary 


These are prominent features in the situa- 
tion at present. A scientific outlook demand- 
ing a highly trained leadership, the rise of 
nationalism and democracy asking for control 
instead of domination by the foreigner and the 
question of support involved in that control 
by the national, together with the stupendous 
nature of the task and the conflicting opinions 
regarding union, all are present problems 
which are crying for solution. 


2. PROBLEMS 
A. Self-Support 


Why is self-support essential? Missionaries 
in every clime answer, “Because subsidizing 
pauperizes. Human nature, when exposed to 
generosity and patronage, multiplies avarice 
in proportion to the willingness of the bene- 
factor to be exploited.” “Here lies the mis- 
sionary’s protégé,’ might be inscribed over 

130 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


many a dead church and over many a spir- 
itually dead convert; and “Killed by kindness” 
would do for the second line of the epitaph. 

“Heaven helps those who help themselves,” 
is as true of the church and the convert on 
the foreign mission field as it is at home, where 
many a preacher and many another benefactor 
has learned in sorrow that a dollar spent to 
help someone to help himself is better than a 
hundred dollars handed out just for temporary 
relief. | 

Financing the work of the Church on the 
mission field in the last analysis is not the task 
of the missionary, nor of the national agent, 
but of the church on the field. In the end it 
must be so. In the beginning it was so. “The 
laborer is worthy of his hire.’ The Antioch 
church did not support Paul. Paul never ex- 
pected it to, but he did say that the churches 
to whom the gospel was preached ought to care 
for the workers. His support of himself was 
an exception. Jesus made no attempt to 
finance the Twelve nor the Seventy. He told 
them to take what the people gave them. That 
the church should support its own workers is 
a foundation principle. It is scriptural, laid 
down by Jesus and by Paul. It is found 
throughout the Old Testament too. In those 
times the clergy were supported by the tithes 
of the people. In the New Testament foreign 

131 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


money never entered into the question. The 
implication is therefore that this principle 
should be followed. ‘The experience of man 
with his fellow men, backed up by scriptural 
injunction, ought to be sufficient for the settle- 
ment of the question. 

But it has not been so. Missionaries have 
argued that since the national could be hired 
with foreign money more cheaply than a for- 
eigner can be and, besides, has a better knowl- 
edge of the language and the customs, it was 
more than justifiable to pay him a salary out 
of foreign money to preach the gospel and act 
as pastor to his own people, who, in the nature 
of the case, ought to support him; but, since 
they would not, and the gospel ought to be 
preached and the converts cared for, therefore 
the missionary was justified in hiring him 
with the more plentiful foreign money. This 
policy, it must be admitted, while not develop- 
ing strength of character in the individual nor 
in the church, has been quite successful in win- 
ning great numbers to Christianity. Much 
speed has been attained, but the churches de- 
veloped by such a policy have been a constant 
drag upon the missionary to whom they have 
looked as did the early Christians of India for 
education and for a livelihood. This is com- 
mon talk among missionaries who share with 
independent-minded converts a profound con- 

132 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


tempt for the churches and, as they are called, 
the “old converts” who expect the mission- 
aries to continue the old policy of supporting 
the work they started, and which the “old 
convert” feels the missionary should therefore 
continue supporting. He has no program for 
the elimination of the missionary nor of the 
money that comes through the missionary. 

The financial policy on many a mission field 
to-day is such that a sudden reversal would 
tear the church to pieces. A sudden change 
to self-support would lead to much hard feel- 
ing, much desertion, and—perhaps to the edi- 
fication of the church in some quarters even 
if the change came through the instrumen- 
tality of the mission. But rarely has a mission 
dared take such a drastic step. 

But most missions have been following a 
policy of subsidizing the work with foreign 
money, and the task now is to change as 
rapidly as possible with the least possible fric- 
tion to a policy of self-support. Many mis- 
sions have undertaken by yearly diminishing 
grants-in-aid to bring self-support. The very 
number of such attempts is a strong recom- 
mendation of their value. 

Many missions have gotten so far away from 
first principles that not only have they disre- 
garded the scriptural injunction that “The 
laborer is worthy of his hire” and the frailty 

133 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


of human nature, but have gone to the making 
of salary schedules for nationals, making 
themselves as a mission responsible for the 
specified salary for each grade of worker, 
without any consideration of the ability of the 
local churches to support their pastors or the 
possibility that they ever will be able to do so. 
These schedules, prepared to avoid the muddle 
into which a non-self-support policy has gotten 
them, have only added to the misunderstand- 
ings that come between missions and nationals 
and led national and missionary alike to loathe 
the day the schedule was ever invented. This 
situation has grown out of the carrying the 
load by the mission, making the nationals re- 
sponsible to the foreigner. He has been the 
“poss.” This, of course, is a most unnatural 
situation. It has educated the churches and 
the workers in entirely the wrong way. 

For the building up of strong indigenous 
churches the responsibility ought to be placed 
on them. The church should be the employer 
of the worker. He should work for his own 
church and not for the missionary nor for 
someone who supports him from the home 
field. Ifthe church can support him, well and 
good. If it cannot do it all, then it certainly 
ought to do what it can; and what it can’t do 
still ought to be paid to the church by the mis- 
sion and by the church to the worker, whether 

134 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


it be a local church or a body of churches. 
Then the worker will work for the church and 
not for the missionary. If he receives part 
of his salary from one and part from the other, 
he is most likely to work for the one who will 
make up any deficit in his salary. That is 
more likely to be the missionary, as he is more 
easily touched by a “hard-luck” story. Until 
the grant-in-aid is paid to the church and not 
to the worker, the worker is going to be a 
foreign-paid, foreign-controlled man. When 
he gets all his salary from the church, no 
matter where the church gets it, he becomes 
an indigenous worker, and, instead of being a 
rolling stone, is a stone in the building of the 
church in which he is working. With such a 
plan the diminishing grant system will work 
for the advancement of a truly self-supporting 
church and help to develop a ministry respon- 
sible to it. 

But there are many difficulties which make 
it necessary to qualify the out-and-out state- 
ments of the preceding paragraphs. We have 
already hinted at the muddle in which many 
missions are now through the subsidy plan. 
The difficulties which led them to compromise 
are still in the field. 

First of all, there is the economic situation 
in some fields: take, for example, the Telugu 
field in South India. The history of missions 

135 


s 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


shows us that a church without a well-trained 
leadership cannot grow, and where people are 
living in such abject poverty as in South India 
it is impossible for them to acquire such train- 
ing as will insure the development of intelli- 
gent leadership. It is spiritually a parallel 
to the physical helplessness of famine vic- 
tims. They are so far down that temporary 
relief must be given. In some way they must 
be helped on their feet. Industrial work has 
been suggested and tried, and for people that 
are in such a situation as that of the Telugu 
and others in China and elsewhere, it would 
seem as if this were the best solution. They 
must be enabled to get to the place where they 
can help themselves. In the process, consider- 
able assistance of a financial nature must be 
given, but the dispensers of the relief are in 
duty bound to develop, with all the means God 
gives them, a spirit of self-reliance and self- 
respect. The main task is not the extortion 
of money from the converts, that they may 
be technically self-supporting, but that they 
may be so raised in the social scale that their 
former abject state of mind may be replaced 
by one that dares with Christian humility to 
look every man in the face. Being able to 
pay their own bills will help that self-respect 
to grow, but the cultivation of ability with the - 
burden of responsibility for their own church 
136 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


is essential. This kind of cultivation has been 
a potent factor on many fields in the increase 
of self-support. 

The second difficulty is that of having well- 
educated and high-salaried workers with poor 
churches to support them. When the leaders 
are trained, their standards of living rise. 
They require more books, better sanitation, 
more respectable living quarters, and more 
suitable food. Their whole outlook upon life 
has been enlarged. All these things take 
money. We must have leaders who can hold 
their own with the leading men in literature 
and government. In America the situation is 
quite different. The man far up is not so 
far above the man way down. In lands like 
China and India there is a great gulf. The 
ignorance and the squalor of the poor country 
Christians is incomprehensible to the person 
who has not seen them with his own eyes. 
How can they ever support a highly trained 
preacher? Yet such have been sent them by 
the missions. This is the extreme case. But 
the problem is a real problem all the way 
through, as, taken generally, the trained man, 
even when not highly trained, is raised so 
much higher than the general level of his fel- 
low countrymen that there is a decided diffi- 
culty in providing his support. Instead of, 
as in America, being the one to receive gifts 

137 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


from his parishioners, he is more able to give 
to them than they to him, so much higher has 
he risen in the scale of living. He is the one 
to set the standard of living not only spir- 
itually and educationally, but also in sanita- 
tion and all that modern civilization has 
brought us. He is much the type of leader in 
his community that the minister of a hundred 
years ago or more was, the best informed and 
most capable man in the community. Shall 
we take him away because his local congrega- 
tion cannot pay his salary? If we do, we take 
from them the one possibility of their progress, 
socially, politically, in sanitation, morals, edu- 
cation and religion—in fact, everything vital 
to their salvation. It would seem, however, as 
if some grading ought to be made. The high- 
est-trained men should go to the churches that 
can come the nearest to supporting them and 
so on down. This will place the best men 
where their influence, as far as man can tell, 
will count for the most; as such churches, for 
the most part, can best appreciate their min- 
istrations. They are not so far removed from 
them as from the poorer churches. This would 
also encourage Sself-support. In some missions 
the churches are given pastors only when they 
can support them. In such cases the plan 
works automatically. 

A third difficulty is the previous lack of 

138 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


training in giving. At first in many fields the 
missionaries were so glad to get converts that 
they did not dare mention the subject of giv- 
ing for fear of scaring away their hard-won 
converts. The nationals have also often fol- 
lowed this policy, even in some cases urging 
with vigor that anyone who became a Chris- 
tian would save money, being relieved from 
the severe strain upon his purse that idolatry 
imposed. Truly a far cry from Jesus’ words, 
“Give and it shall be given you”! and “Lay 
up for yourselves treasure in heaven”! The 
missionaries have been all too generous in 
their giving. But too often they have for- 
gotten that people who have never been under 
the influence of Christianity but are sur- 
rounded by crass materialism are strongly 
tempted to take advantage of the missionary’s 
generosity as a heaven-sent blessing without 
any thought that they ought to follow his ex- 
ample. Such people have to be trained in giv- 
ing. In many fields no sense of responsibility 
has been developed among the churches. Win- 
ning converts has been the exclusive aim. 
Because of this it has become very difficult to 
put upon the older established churches the 
burden they ought to bear. They are so used 
to having the missionary or the national leader 
carry it for them that they want no change. 
But the day has come when such churches must 
139 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


be shocked into initiative, even if it means the 
closing of some of them. Some missions have 
gotten desperate over such churches and have 
withdrawn all support, starting in on a new 
self-supporting policy, for example, the Lon- 
don Mission field of Tsangchow and Hsiao- 
chang in Chihli Province, China. 

A fourth difficulty is the maintenance of 
foreign-built institutions, churches, schools, 
hospitals, ete. These could not have been put 
up by the churches; but they are being put to 
good use. Many doubt the wisdom of build- 
ing expensive plants that are foreign in style 
and on such a vast scale that the churches 
cannot in the near future, at any rate, keep 
them up without outside assistance. But how- 
ever we may criticize the policy that has 
created these institutions and provided such 
advanced equipment, and however we may 
praise the style of church that the Koreans and 
others have put up, as suited to their purses 
and their natural tastes, the fact remains that 
there are these great plants. They are there- 
fore to be reckoned with. Some such plants 
have been put up largely by the use of money 
raised on the field: some of them too are sup- 
ported entirely and others largely by gifts and 
fees obtained on the field. Such are not a 
problem. But there are numbers that are. It 
would be folly to scrap them; but their control 

140 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


by the local church or other body made up 
of nationals is to be sought for as early as pos- 
sible, even where the money must come from 
foreign lands. Surely some agreement can be 
worked out whereby the wishes of the donors 
can be conserved and their confidence retained 
until the local constituency is able to shoulder 
the financial responsibility. 

There is also the problem of highly sub- 
sidized work with increasing costs. These in- 
creasing costs are due largely to the salaries 
of the highly trained national staff who are 
essential to the standard of the institution. 
As noted before, prices are rising, standards 
of living are going up, and salaries must fol- 
low them in the upward trend. There is no 
use to make light of these facts. The advance 
made by government and private institutions 
of learning and medicine makes imperative the 
raising of the standards of the missionary in- 
stitutions. It is not a case of the national 
churches catching up with present situation. 
It is, rather, a race in which they are increas- 
ing their contributions and the institutions 
are steadily increasing their expenses. One 
does not stand still for the other to overtake 
it. To keep up the efficiency of the work, it 
looks as if in many cases it might be necessary 
to waive for the time being the goal of self- 
support as the primary goal and put efficiency 

141 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


as the first requisite. This applies especially 
to educational, medical, and social work. 
Whereas in evangelistic work a definite goal 
of self-support in terms of years with the 
diminishing grant system as the method of 
attainment is generally feasible, for institu- 
tional work there is good ground for the theory 
that in time the additional money put into 
equipment and highly paid workers will so 
raise the standard of the national giver and 
so command his respect and interest, whether 
he be Christian or only interested in the insti- 
tution, that the question of support will be 
settled. There are already many institutions 
like the Anglo-Chinese College in Singapore 
which have reached this much-desired goal. 

As aids in the promotion of self-support 
there are a number of helps that have proven 
valuable and can therefore be recommended. 
Education in giving has produced wonderful 
results in Chosen, among the Karens of 
Burma, at Harpoot and on other fields. In- 
dustrial missions have done infinitely more 
for the Telugu than ever did the old “barrack” 
system in India. Again and again it has been 
reported that self-support has seen great ad- 
vance upon the granting of a larger measure 
of self-government to the church on the field. 
And, lastly, the power of the Holy Spirit in 
special meetings has at times led nationals to 

142 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


declare that they would no longer depend 
upon the foreigner for their salary, but would 
throw themselves upon the mercy of their own 
people. 

The matter of self-support has many divi- 
sions. Let us consider first the unit of sup- 
port. Shall it be the local church or a group 
of churches banded together into one organ- 
ization? Of course independent churches 
have already settled this matter for them- 
selves. But where a number of churches are 
organized into a synod, presbytery, confer- 
ence, or association, it would seem advisable 
that the unit should be the whole body. There 
may be some churches that are unable to sup- 
port themselves entirely and must depend 
upon others for help. Some churches, as in 
Western lands, are in such localities that they 
cannot be expected to support themselves, but 
need to be kept open as missions. 

Secondly, should support include that of the 
missionary? Since he is of another nation 
and his standard of living is so different and 
often so much higher, it is hardly reasonable 
to expect that the church on the field should 
provide his salary. In some of the South Sea 
Islands, however, it is done, and even furlough 
expenses are paid. Where the church is able, 
as these churches are, to do this, it is most 
commendable. But there can be no question 

143 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


as to the order of objects to be provided for. 
The salary and other expenses of the mission- 
ary ought to be the last on the list. 

Third, shall it be evangelistic work only, 
that is, pastoral support, that shall be counted 
as self-support? It is often counted that way. 
Usually because of the high costs of education 
and other institutional work, the attainment 
of self-support in evangelistic work is first. 
But there is a pride born of the fact of sup- 
porting its own pastor that leads to the rejec- 
tion of other features of self-support. In edu- 
cating the church in its self-support ideal, the 
missionary needs to guard against this by 
showing the church its duty in education, 
medical and social work, and outside evan- 
gelistic and missionary work. But the point 
of first emphasis for the churches, other things 
being equal, is the support of their pastors. 
Educational and other institutional work in 
our Western lands is largely endowed, so that 
the matter of self-support in these matters on 
the foreign field is more difficult of attainment, 
because of the comparative poverty of our 
foreign-field churches. 

Fourth, should there be a division between 
the work of the churches and the work of the 
mission in the evangelistic field? Some mis- 
sions have let the self-supporting churches 
support their own work while the missions 

144 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


have carried on evangelistic work outside, 
more or less independently of the churches 
themselves. This policy was pursued in 
Japan until quite recently, but it has been 
practically discontinued now. The Church 
Missionary Society in South India and other 
missions too have found that such a policy 
narrows the outlook of the churches and 
makes needless division in the work. The task 
of saving their own country ought to be laid 
directly upon the churches, and how is that 
possible if all the evangelistic work outside of 
the Jocal church organizations is left to for- 
eigners and nationals hired with foreign 
funds administered by foreigners? 

We would then conclude that this should be 
the natural order of enterprises undertaken 
by the churches as items for their support: 
first, their own pastors; second, the carrying 
on of evangelistic work outside their own com- 
munities; third, the institutional side of the 
work; and fourth, the missionary. We put 
evangelistic work outside of the community 
before institutional work because it is more 
of the same type as pastoral support, can be 
managed more easily, and supported usually 
at less expense. 

The preceding paragraphs have dealt 
largely with the state of affairs of the mis- 
sions that have been operating some time on 

145 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


a subsidy basis; but there also arises the ques- 
tion of newly opened work. Should that be 
self-supporting from the start? Bishop Tho- 
burn has expressed himself as believing that 
it should. Many other missionaries who have 
studied the field have said the same. Inas- 
much as some missions have been started and 
continued on this basis with great success, as 
already noted, and as the principle of self- 
support is now admitted by practically all 
workers to be valid, any work not started on 
a self-support basis surely ought to be able to 
show very excellent reasons for departing from 
the principle of self-support. Certainly, if any 
aid is granted, it ought to be granted in such 
a way as would not put the national in the 
relation of a hired helper to the mission, if he 
has also any relation, such as pastor, to a 
body of church members; and a definite self- 
support program ought to be placed before the 
new converts so that they will understand very 
clearly that the help given is only for a short 
time and is conditional on what they them- 
selves do. 

The solution of the whole problem of self- 
support in the last analysis, is in an indige- 
nous consciousness on the part of the converts, 
or, where such consciousness is lacking, in its 
development. Nothing will take the place of 
this. The whole matter is a question of the 

146 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


attitude of the Christians on the field. As 
soon as they have sufficient self-respect they 
will not be contented with the stigma of being 
supported by money from foreign lands. To 
cultivate this kind of an attitude is one of the 
great tasks of the missionary and the indige- 
nous church leaders. Just as the young man 
who works his way through school, instead of 
having his way paid, develops a self-reliance 
and initiative that will stand him in good stead 
all his days, so the church that, like the Karen 
Church of Burma, refuses to take proffered 
foreign money, will develop into a strong, ac- 
tive, and progressive Christian organization. 


B. LEADERSHIP 


Self-respect and self-reliance are most to be 
looked for among educated leaders. In a 
word, this shows the importance of leadership 
in the indigenous churches being formed on 
the foreign fields. It is the leaders that are 
the first to catch the vision of the indigenous 
church. It is therefore through them that 
the whole church must catch the vision. For 
this reason, the development of strong leader- 
ship is the Open Sesame to the work of build- 
ing up strong churches. 

In training leaders an educational system 
is a necessity. These are days of thoroughly 
organized education. The church cannot 

147 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


afford to be behind in the opportunities she 
affords her leaders to make themselves as effi- 
cient as modern education can make them. 
Without well-educated, scientifically trained 
minds at the head of the Christian enterprise 
there is no guarantee of sanity in the church 
of the future. The mission boards are send- 
ing only highly trained, well-educated men and 
women to the foreign fields, as they realize the 
need of balance and ability to meet difficult 
situations. The national leaders need educa- 
tion just as the missionary does. 

As there are all classes to meet in the work 
of winning men and women to Christ, different 
types of institution are needed for the trained 
worker. ‘To meet the educated classes on their 
own ground and to preach to educated Chris- 
tians, there is a type of worker needed who 
has thoroughly prepared himself in the kind 
of questions put and the kind of problem raised 
by the educated man and woman. <A worker 
without much in common with the one he is 
dealing with cannot sympathetically discuss 
with him the difficulties he has, nor answer the 
objections he brings up. But it is impossible 
to give all leaders the highest type of educa- 
tion. Personal capacity and finance are effec- 
tive limitations. Not all can go through col- 
lege and theological school. Provision must 
be made for lower grades of instruction. Be- 

148 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


sides the graduate type of institution, there 
are on the mission-field theological schools, 
institutes and Bible schools of various grades, 
providing instruction for men and women who 
have not been able to go as far as college. 
Some of these institutions take men and 
women who have passed through only the 
primary grades, and some have little or no 
standard of admission. The standards 
of these schools, as well as the quality of in- 
struction in them, is being steadily raised. 
The ideal on the field as at home is to give all 
the training possible. 

Besides the training of men and women who 
look forward to religious work as their pro- 
fession, there is also much need for the train- 
ing of lay workers, who devote whole or part 
time with or without pay to religious work. 
The large family unit on many fields in con- 
trast to the individualism of our Western so- 
ciety, makes possible a great deal of work by 
men who have leisure time. Many have re- 
tired from business; for the Oriental, when 
his wants are sufficiently provided for, is more 
likely than the Occidental, to cease the piling 
up of more wealth. There are also many who 
can give specified times of the year to Chris- 
tian work. This state of affairs makes pos- 
sible the opening of special schools, usually 
of from ten days’ to a few months’ duration, 

149 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


for the instruction of these men and also of 
women who have leisure. Such schools have 
been made use of with most encouraging re- 
sults. 

To educate the members of the future indig- 
enous churches so that they may take their 
rightful place in the conduct of the church is 
a very vital part of the program of missionary 
work. Literary, professional, and industrial 
training all have their place in the creating of 
an intelligent church. The strength of Prot- 
estant Christianity is largely here. Much has 
been accomplished in the way of strengthen- 
ing lay leadership, but there is much more 
work ahead in this line. 

In the training of leaders for religious work 
there has ever been a tendency to make the 
course too scholastic, too theoretical, and so 
divorce it from real life. Men coming out of 
the theological institutions have been criti- 
cized on all hands as having lost their grip 
on the practical matters that concern common 
folk. This criticism has led to the adapting 
of the curriculum to the needs of the task and 
to the practice while in school that keeps the 
theologue in touch with the world. Much dis- 
cussion of the value of Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin has been indulged in, and these lan- 
guages have, just as in Western lands, lost the 
place they once held. English too, as a medium 

150 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


of instruction, has come in for its share of 
criticism, as separating a man from his people. 
Some years ago the Bishop of Madras, recog- 
nizing that the study of English books was 
necessary to give a man the material he 
needed, and also recognizing the alienation it 
meant from the people of the country, changed 
the course of instruction in theology. He had 
the students do their reading in English, then 
write out what they got in Telugu, following 
up this exercise by personal conference instead 
of using lectures, which he abolished alto- 
gether. It has not been the fortune of the 
writer to come across a more sensible plan. 
Of course many cannot study enough to ac- 
quire the proficiency in English necessary to 
carry out this plan. The only thing to do in 
such cases is to depend upon hearing lectures 
and reading such books as are available in 
the vernacular. 

In the training of leaders there is a funda- 
mental principle already touched upon in the 
section on self-support, namely, the relation 
of the national leader to the church rather 
than to the mission. The mission is a for- 
eign institution. The church is national. He 
is a national. He should therefore be respon- 
sible to the church and should from the church 
receive his support. Although the church can- 
not support him, still the money should pass 

151 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


through the hands of the church, that the 
proper relation may be kept. 

This principle is easier to state than to work 
out. It is a rocky road that it has to travel. 
Some nationals feel that the missionary domi- 
nates the church because he has in his hands 
the control of the funds with which the church 
is largely run. He feels that if he enters 
Christian work, he will be under the supervi- 
sion of a foreigner and dependent largely upon 
the foreigner for his daily bread. His pride 
rebels at such a relation. For this reason some 
avoid religious work, and others who are in 
it are continually protesting and longing for 
a change. 

Another difficulty is the fear of the national 
religious worker that the church will not back 
him. He would like to be freed from foreign 
control and from the acceptance of foreign 
money, but he cannot see how it can be done, 
because he doubts, sometimes the willingness, 
sometimes the ability of the church to support 
him. Some are disgusted with the type of 
Christianity which has developed in the 
churches and feel that they would be so ham- 
pered by the conservatism of the membership 
that they would be unable to contribute 
through the ministry what they wish to give to 
their country. 

In some fields, as far as the type of leader- 

152 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


ship to whom the church may be turned over 
to goes, the problem is far from solution. The 
distance from paganism is sometimes too short 
to make sure that there will be no lapse even 
on the part of leaders. They are not suffi- 
ciently developed in character in such fields 
to be left without the supervision of the mis- 
sionary. This condition holds in lands where 
animism has prevailed as the religion and 
where before the arrival of the missionary 
there was no literature. 

Racial discrimination has been a very tender 
point in the matter of leadership. Men of 
another race are very sensitive to any indica- 
tion of the preference of a man of another race 
over one of their own, when they can see no 
reason for it save the race of the man pre- 
ferred. This discrimination may be not only 
racial but also national. The missionary has 
often given evidence of his confidence in men 
of his own nationality and distrust of those 
of another nationality. At times his dis- 
crimination has been warranted; at other 
times it has not. There has been too much 
hesitation to trust men of another nation or of 
another race. 

The solution of the problem of leadership 
for the churches of the foreign fields lies in 
Christian brotherhood. ‘There are mission- 
aries who would ever play the father, as we 

153 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


have seen the Roman Catholic clerics do. 
Some take a peculiar fatherly interest in cer- 
tain boys whom they delight in educating out 
of their own purse and follow them in their 
work afterward. But the opinion of the na- 
tional leaders is against patronage of this 
kind. They have no respect for a man who 
has thus been brought up on foreign bounty 
and who feels more or less bound personally 
to his benefactor. Such patronage too de- 
stroys the freedom of the one helped and does 
not fit him to be a big-minded man with the 
self-reliance a real man ought to have. All 
touches of patronage need to be done away 
with. All signs of the feeling that the national 
is a child, in fact, anything that says, “I know 
better than you do,” must be concealed, if it 
cannot be entirely erased from the thought of 
the missionary. The domineering attitude of 
the missionary he himself is quite unconscious 
of, and he would never call his attitude that; 
it grows naturally out of his generalization 
that the race of people with whom he is deal- 
ing is inferior to his own and that he is sent 
as their benefactor. Before he knows it and 
without his knowing it, he shows his attitude 
and offends the people he wants to win. He 
gives the people with whom he is working no 
credit for having any pride. If in his mind he 
would reverse the situation and imagine what 
154 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


it would be like if he were in the shoes of the 
national and the national in his shoes, his days 
of patronizing and domineering would be at an 
end. He would see that what is needed is 
brotherly sympathy. He would realize that 
he is not the proprietor of the concern, but a 
guest in the home; that it is not his prerogative 
to give orders as a father to a son or an em- 
ployer to a workman, but to find ways of sug- 
gesting improvements and to give inspiration. 
The way that missionaries of the white race 
have presumed upon the graces of their hosts, 
while not to be compared with the arrogance 
of some other white men, has at least caused 
much misunderstanding and estrangement. 
If it were not for the Christian patience exer- 
cised by the nationals, there would often be no 
getting on together. . Where patience has been 
absent, sad results have followed. 

Just as long as the missionary is the pay- 
master, there must exist a barrier between mis- 
Sionary and national. True brotherhood is 
impossible. The social relation of the em- 
ployer and his employee in our own land is 
not, Save in rare cases, on an equality. How 
much farther apart must they be when not 
only this relation of employer to employee 
separates them but also the dividing lines of 
race and nation! This alone is a powerful 
argument for the paying of national workers 

155 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


by the church and not by the missionary. The 
man who is employed by the missionary or by 
the mission feels that he is under them. He 
must do their bidding or lose his job. This 
matter of pay ought not to be allowed any 
jonger to stand in the way of good feeling be- 
tween missionary and national. The mission- 
ary should cease being an accountant and pay- 
master and assume the relation of a brother. 
What accounting and paying has to be done 
ought to be arranged for between the church 
and the mission or the mission treasurer, and 
the utmost publicity ought to be given to all 
accounts. This will do away with the sub- 
servient position that the national is com- 
pelled to feel and give him a chance to de- 
velop in self-respect himself and so enable his 
church to grow in self-respect. 

The future of the churches depends upon 
leadership more than upon any one other 
thing. Without well-trained leaders they 
must be under the guardianship of the mis- 
sionary and so be open to the charge of being 
called foreign institutions. Without indige- 
nous leadership there will be no such thing as 
an indigenous church. That it is paying to 
train national leadership and to intrust it 
with responsibility is clearly indicated by the 
following quotation from Secretary J. H. 
Franklin: 

156 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


As a secretary, I have traveled in numerous 
countries of the Orient, and I have received the 
impression that the missionary agencies which 
were most willing to grant a large degree of lead- 
ership to native forces—yes, in certain fields, to 
place responsibilities entirely upon such forees— 
have made the most notable contributions, so far 
as I could observe. 


The attitude of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church which has received the nationals on 
equal terms is highly commended and their 
success is ascribed by Secretary Franklin 
largely to this attitude. To make this leader- 
ship self-respecting, we must give them the 
same place, the same privileges, the same social 
standing as we have. 


C. SELF-GOVERNMENT 


Leadership presupposes some stage or form 
of self-government. In fact, the matter of 
leadership leads directly to the problem of self- 
government. The church must have an organ- 
ization and that implies leadership. Since 
most missions started work without paying 
much attention to the formation of the church, 
there have arisen multitudes of churches, and 
even whole areas of churches, which know 
little about the management of their own 
affairs. For example, in 1923, “in practically 
two thirds of China the leadership of the 

157 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


church is still largely in the hands of the for- 
eign missionary, who alone receives converts 
into the church membership and administers 
the sacraments.”! Many missions are to-day 
accordingly struggling with the problem of 
devolving the authority of the missions upon 
the churches. 

In the process of growth in missionary work 
there are usually three stages to be marked. 
In the first the missionary leads. In the 
second the missionary and the national leaders 
work together with joint powers. In the third 
the national leaders are in charge. The goal 
is the third stage. In Japan as far as concerns 
church organization this was arrived at in a 
comparatively short time. In other fields 
some churches or groups of churches have also 
arrived at self-government, as we have noted. 
Many missions are still in the first stage and 
many in the second. 

There are so many ways of making the 
transition and so many variations of grade 
that to list and describe them all would be a 
most lengthy and wearisome task. We can 
here mention only some of the more outstand- 
ing ways. The others are closely related to 
these and partake of much the same features, 
sometimes more of one and sometimes more 





*The Chinese Church, 1923, p. 102. 
158 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


of another. We here note the three main 
types of devolution. 

The first is the method of turning over the 
church government by the mission to the 
church item by item. This is the policy that 
has usually been followed by the Congrega- 
tional and Presbyterian types of mission. 
Some examples of these are as follows: 


(1) In Basutoland the Paris Society has broken 
up large districts into parishes and created sev- 
eral pastorates under nationals. 

(2) In the Madura Mission of the A. B. C. F. M. 
a District Conference was organized in 1910 with 
the proportion in members of two Indians to one 
American, and this Conference was given charge 
of evangelistic and elementary educational work.? 

(3) In the West India Presbyterian Mission 
the decision has been made to transfer to the 
Indian Church a gradually increasing amount of 
the work carried on by the Mission Council. 
Work actually transferred is the evangelistic and 
primary school work in certain areas, also a hostel 
in Poona and the work in Thana, including med- 
ical work. (The names of the places are not sig- 
nificant, only the types of work.)* 

(4) Generally the local churches founded by 
the Baptists and the Congregationalists, on 
reaching self-support, have become self-governing. 

International Review of Missions, 1913, p. 59. Used by 
permission. 

"American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
Annual Report, 1914, p. 126. 

"The East and the West, 1923, p. 124. Society for the 


Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Used by per- 
mission. 
159 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


When these churches have become organized into 
Associations, then the task has been to turn over 
one activity after another to the Association or 
Convention until all is in the hands of the 
church.! 


This method requires the running of two 
separate organizations—the mission and the 
church. The work being done concerns them 
both. Yet they are separate. Naturally, the 
question arises: Why can’t they work together? 
The reason in the past has been that the mis- 
sionary has been unwilling to share on equal 
terms the authority which his control of the 
funds has given him. Sometimes his reason 
was a good one, where capable leaders had not 
been developed. Sometimes the leaders might 
have been developed if the mission had under- 
stood its task better. It is significant and 
encouraging to note that some missions which 
have been working on this line are changing 
that policy for one in which the nationals are 
being given a vital part in the affairs of the 
mission. A very excellent example is the for- 
mation of the Arcot Assembly (in India) 
which in January of this year took over the 
entire work of the church and the mission. 

The second method of devolution is that 


*The East and the West, 1923, p. 124. Society for Propa- 
gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: also Chinese 
Recorder, 1917, p. 80, 1923, p. 157, Baptist Missionary 
Review, 1923, p. 288, 

160 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


of building up the authority of the church 
from the local church to the district, then to 
the synod, or diocese. The Anglican bodies 
have largely followed this procedure. This 
method has broken down at the same place 
the first one has, namely, the division of work 
—the mission with its separate native staff 
doing the work the church ought to be doing 
and managing. Why the separation? There 
comes & time when the two administrations be- 
come impossible. Many of the best workers 
prefer missionary service to the work of the 
church because of the certainty that their posts 
and salary are secure. The church too is 
limited to its own self and is tempted to for- 
get the needs outside as these are falsely re- 
garded as the task of the mission. In India 
and Japan particularly steps have been taken 
to transfer the mission work to the church. 
The third method is the increase of the au- 
thority of the nationals by increasing the num- 
ber of ordained men who have equal powers 
with the ordained missionaries. This is the 
policy of the Methodist Episcopal mission 
work, in connection with which there is no 
mission in the generally understood meaning 
of that term. The authority, being vested in 
the Annual Conference which is composed of 
ordained men, passes without any process of 
devolution from the missionaries to the na- 
161 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


tionals as soon as the latter are in the ma- 
jority. All institutions and committees are 
subject to the Annual Conference. Even the 
character of the missionary is reviewed and 
reports from all agencies are required by this 
body. This form of organization with the 
minimum of friction transfers authority from 
the missionaries to the nationals. One weak- 
ness, however, is its failure to provide for ade- 
quate representation for the laity and for their 
equal share in the responsibilities of the 
church. This weakness is shared too by some 
of the other bodies. The only way it is over- 
come in the Methodist polity is in the equal 
lay and clerical representation at the General 
Conference, the supreme legislative body, 
meeting once in four years in the United 
States of America, but this body, because of 
its international character, cannot give due 
consideration to the problems of each branch 
of the church in different lands. Another 
weakness, though many Methodists will not 
agree that it is a weakness, is its international 
character, which interferes with any possible 
union with other bodies in the formation of 
national churches. In Japan, however, this 
difficulty was overcome by separation from the 
larger body and by a union of three Methodist 
bodies in Japan itself. 

The question whether a church should be 

162 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


self-supporting before self-government is 
granted and whether self-government should 
be granted in proportion to self-support, has 
been often raised. In some fields the mission 
has agreed that the church shall govern it- 
self as soon as it is self-supporting. Most Bap- 
tist and Congregationalist Missions have 
adopted that policy in dealing with single 
churches. The Presbyterians in Japan have 
done it with an organized body of churches. 
There a number of Japanese leaders some 
years ago were even unwilling to receive 
churches into their organization until they 
were self-supporting. But ability in self-gov- 
ernment and ability in self-support cannot 
always keep together. In some fields, as for 
example one in the South Sea Islands, the 
people developed ability to support their 
church work before they had ability to govern 
their churches. In other fields the intellectual 
and moral ability has come before the finan- 
cial. In such cases it does not seem right to 
hold back authority from the church. Further- 
more, the matter of self-support, when applied 
to a local church, sometimes means one thing 
and sometimes another. A rich man may have 
died and endowed the local church. Or the 
pastor may be supporting himself with the 
labor of his hands or have enough wealth of 
his own to forego support by any church. 
163 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


Again, a church may be paying a poorly 
trained man five dollars a month and another 
church a well-trained man one hundred dollars 
a month. And all goes as self-support. The 
fact that there is such a variety of circum- 
stances favors the granting of self-government 
without any special reference to self-support. 
Self-government is not a prize to be paid for 
but a matter of due responsibility. Of course 
where a church can support itself and will not, 
it is lacking in the self-respect that is at the 
basis of self-government. Either education or 
an operation is needed. But when mentally 
equipped and morally capable, that is the 
proper time to grant self-government. When 
the church can do it, why not let it do it? 
There has been much said and written re- 
garding the expenditure of the contributions 
of Western churches by the missionaries 
rather than by the nationals. Some think 
that because the money has been raised in the 
missionary’s country, the missionary should 
determine where and how it should be used. 
This is another species of race discrimination. 
The money is not the missionary’s any more 
than it is the national’s. It is the Lord’s 
money to be used for his work. As it is to be 
spent in the country of the national, it is 
sooner or later going to pass into the hands 
of the nationals. If the missionary allocates 
164 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


money to a certain object, he is not, however, 
omnipresent, so that he can see that it is spent 
as he would have it. The writer knows of 
many cases too where money turned over to 
a national was made to stretch much further 
than it ever could have gone if a missionary 
had the care of it. In many missions to-day 
nationals are sitting on boards with mission- 
aries, deciding what to do with foreign con- 
tributions. When a vote is taken, the ayes 
are not all missionaries and the nays all‘ na- 
tionals. In matters of judgment, therefore, it 
is not the national against the foreigner, but 
individual against individual, regardless of 
nation or race. Some years ago missionaries 
in certain missions were fearful of letting the 
nationals know the ins and outs of mission 
finance. When they did let one or two or 
even more into meetings, they still had to 
have secret meetings by themselves for fear 
the nationals would know it all. As the na- 
tionals have been taken into confidence more 
and more and the secret meetings discon- 
tinued, nothing dreadful has happened. In 
fact, when nationals have been given the chair- 
manship of finance committees and been given 
a majority of votes in such committees, there 
has been no loss in efficiency nor misuse of 
funds. There should be no national line drawn 
here. The problems to be solved are (1) the 
165 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


capability of the national—a quality which 
the missionary can easily ascertain by sharing 
his problems with the nationals, and (2) the 
willingness of the missionary to give up his 
control of affairs. If the missionary takes 
pains to find whether the judgment of the na- 
tional is sane or not and will put aside preju- 
dice, the problem will soon be settled. 

The ability of the church to govern itself 
is best acquired by giving it a chance to try 
self-government. In India the complaint has 
been made that the civil government has given 
more important posts to Indians than the 
missions have. There are a few who object 
that if administration is turned over to the 
nationals, the leaders will be more domineer- 
ing than ever the missionaries have been. 
Such an objection, however, must presuppose 
authority derived from ‘the missionary and 
not from the church, for if a church finds its 
leaders adopt a dictatorial attitude, all the 
church has to do is to vote for a change. The 
writer has seen the overbearing national effec- 
tually rebuked by his brethren. These are 
mere incidents in the process. With a demo- 
cratically organized church they will be 
ironed out by the nationals themselves. Such 
matters need not concern the missionary. His 
work is to train the church in self-government, 
and as long as he fails to experiment, how can 

166 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


he expect the church to develop ability? No 
child has as yet been known to learn how to 
walk without making the effort himself, and a 
few falls must come as a matter of course. 
The policy of the missionary is not faultless, 
nor is the policy of the church in the home 
lands. In looking over the whole field one is 
impressed with the fact that administration 
has been in a few cases turned over too.soon, 
or, rather, too suddenly, to the church, but that 
in most cases there has been too much with- 
holding of authority. The difficulty in mis- 
sions where there has been no devolution is 
that the missionary has kept the reins in his 
own hands, not trusting the national with 
power, because he fears the national may mis- 
use it. The result has been that the national 
has learned to lean upon the missionary and 
so has either lost or has not acquired the sense 
of responsibility he ought to have, or he has 
gone to the other extreme and thrown off all 
restraint, starting a church of his own or leay- 
ing organized Christianity altogether. 

The solution of the difficulty is in taking 
into confidence from the beginning the church 
in the person of its leaders, in all things that 
concern its welfare. This means that admin- 
istration on the part of the missionary should 
give way to suggestion and advice as fast as 
possible. The administration of the sacra- 

167 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


ments, discipline, and the allocation of funds 
are matters that any body of Christians have 
opinions on, and the missionary, instead of 
going ahead without learning these opinions, 
ought to take time to make inquiry, ought to 
show clearly that he has respect for those opin- 
ions, and where he finds them incorrect, should 
inform or exhort, as the case may require. 
Usually the missionary has been so much in a 
hurry to get things done that he has not had 
time to train nationals to do them and so be 
fitted to carry the burden which rightly be- 
longs to them. It has been so much easier and 
has saved so much time at the moment. But 
the work is the work of the church, and the 
church ought to be trained in that work from 
the very beginning. Through that training 
there will come the development of the church. 

In fields where no self-government has been 
granted or where only a measure has been 
granted, what should be the attitude of the 
mission? Should self-government be granted 
as fast as the church asks for it? Or should 
the mission urge autonomy on the church? Or 
should it hold back when its judgment so 
directs? Forcing is an unnatural process. It 
would seem better to create a desire for self- 
government in fields where no such desire 
exists, or in communities which have so long 
looked up to the missionary as the source of all 

168 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


blessings that they do not want a change, or 
in the case of the worker who would rather 
have the missionary rule and also pay his 
salary for the reason that his own future is in 
this way better assured. If the appetite for 
self-government cannot be created in them, it 
is plainly a sign of disease. Either a drastic 
self-support plaster or the tonic of a revival 
meeting may remedy the situation. We would 
recall here that self-respect will naturally ask 
for autonomy. Yet in some missions the mis- 
Sionaries have realized before the nationals 
that self-government ought to come and have 
accordingly made provision for the transfer of 
authority. Where they can anticipate the 
desires of the nationals and lead them on and 
up to complete self-government, there is a 
situation in which the friction is reduced to 
nothing. This is the ideal. On the other 
hand, there are cases where the nationals are 
unreasonable in their demands, or where they 
have not gotten on well with the missionaries, 
and therefore ask for authority. Since cases 
differ so much from one another, it would be 
very difficult to lay down any principle here 
other than that of praying and consulting in 
sympathetic, brotherly fashion with the na- 
tionals, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide into 
the truth for the good of the church. 

When the process of devolution is com- 

169 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


pleted, there comes the questions, What shall 
we do with the missionary? and What shall be 
the relation of the mission board to the 
church? In some fields these questions have 
already been answered. The Samoans have 
said, “Keep the missionary and pay him.” 
His spiritual qualities, his advice and the con- 
nection his presence affords with the rest of 
the Christian world, are too valuable to lose. 
In Japan the churches are still able and glad 
to use the missionary, in some churches not 
holding him responsible entirely to the church 
on the field, while in others he is entirely under 
the church, though paid from abroad. In 
China the Christian leaders are saying that 
they do not want the missionary to go, as 
they need him spiritually. Evidently, if the 
missionary makes himself indispensable in the 
realm of the spirit rather than in that of ad- 
ministration, he has still a long period of use- 
fulness ahead. And as for the mission boards, 
though they will have no control over the 
church, they will still play a great part in the 
life of all churches that still need financial 
assistance in education, medical, social, and 
evangelistic work. 

While we have in this section gone in some 
detail into the matter of devolution in a tech- 
nical sense, the organization that now is and 
the organization that is to be, though impor- 

170 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


tant, are not the primary factors in the matter, 
The matter of greatest importance is a spirit 
of Christian brotherhood that has overcome 
distrust and suspicion with sympathy and 
“magnanimity, and a deep conviction on the 
part of the missionary that his task is to serve 
rather than administer and to train nationals 
to govern rather than himself to govern. This 
kind of spirit will make short work of any 
obstacles that organization may offer. 

Norrt.—It seems hardly necessary to say 
that as long as the property on which church 
activities are conducted is owned by a foreign 
society and both property and Christians are 
protected by foreign diplomats, the church will 
be regarded as a foreign institution. 


D. DENOMINATIONALISM AND THE TENDENCY 
TowARD UNION 


The problem of denominationalism is a very 
real one on the mission fields to-day, and it is 
closely allied to the situation at the home base. 
At the time Protestant missions began there 
was scarcely any sign of federation among the 
churches. Each denomination ran its whole 
work without reference to the feelings or the 
rights of other denominations. The lack of 
comity on the mission field is one very good 
illustration of this, and another is the plant- 
ing of a church of one denomination across the 

171 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


road from one or another right in our own 
land. To-day in America we have the Federal 
Council of Churches, joint meetings of the 
boards of different denominations to discuss 
policies, organic union of churches already 
consummated and others under discussion. 
The times have changed from division to 
union. 

The spirit of union has invaded the foreign 
field. Why one Christ but a divided church? 
asks the national. The missionary asks the 
same question. Some seem to feel that they 
have what they feel is an adequate answer, but 
their number is diminishing. The progressive 
man and the progressive woman are saying to- 
day that union must come. Among the na- 
tional leaders the feeling is abroad that the 
denominations are an extra which the missions 
have brought them, in good faith indeed, but 
not essential to Christianity; that denomina- 
tional differences are due to the historical 
developments of Western lands and that they 
can therefore well be done away with as of no 
value to the lands of the mission fields. 

The union movements of our day have been 
noted in a previous chapter. It will therefore 
suffice here to recall the fact that much has 
been done on the fields to unite the various 
churches, union in general, professional and 
other education, organic union of churches, 

172 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


national councils, union in publication and 
other work; but that the task is only well 
begun is very evident. 

The movements toward union, it is interest- 
ing to note, have largely been due to the vision 
of the missionaries, but the nationals have 
been fast coming into possession of the same 
attitude. The union of the Presbyterian 
bodies in India in 1908 was the desire of the 
missionaries, not that of the nationals. But 
since then we have noted in another chapter 
the negotiations between the Indian Malabar 
of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, leaders of 
the Anglican Church and those of the South 
India United Church for an organic church 
union. This shows the growth of the desire of 
the nationals for union. In China there has 
been the same progress of feeling on the part 
of nationals. 

But there are difficulties in the way in the 
organizing of great national churches. 

1. The home constituency has not all come 
to the point where it is willing to allow its 
funds to go to an enterprise which unites the 
converts of their mission with those of another. 
A proposed organic union in West China, as 
we have seen, was held up by the Home Boards 
of more than one church. Not all com- 
munions, sad to relate, are as eager for church 
union as the Presbyterians and Congrega- 

173 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


tionalists. Some, in fact, are very chary of 
the subject. 

2. On the field too denominationalism has 
often been drilled into the converts so deeply 
that the nationals are less willing for union 
than the missionaries. They have been led to 
believe or have themselves developed the be- 
lief that no other church is doing the work they 
are doing and that no other can. Often 
jealousy of their individual influence is 
mingled with their denominational convic- 
tions. The two combined are extremely hard 
to dislodge. 

3. Ecclesiastical organizations are hard to 
alter or adapt. This is especially true because 
of prejudice in favor of what one has become 
used to. Few have ever studied the organiza- 
tion of a sister denomination and so they have 
naturally no sympathy with it. Practically 
all the unions of churches on the fields have 
come between churches of the same style of 
organization, and the others have been of de- 
nominations of Presbyterian and Congrega- 
tionalist polity. In the latter case the union 
was made less difficult than one would antici- 
pate by the recognition of the Congregational- 
ists that a closer form of organization than 
theirs is an advantage on the foreign field. 

4, Inertia is another barrier. The great ma- 
jority of Christians are satisfied with things 

174 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


as they are. They do not see the use of change. 
Even many of the leaders are too busy with 
other problems and are content to let what 
they consider well enough alone. 

5. Doctrinal views, while to-day dividing 
not so much between denominations as inside 
denominations themselves, are still divisive 
factors. Some denominations still are inclined 
to discriminate against the doctrinal liberality 
of others. The matter of the type of baptism, 
the question of apostolic succession, and the 
administration of the sacraments are matters 
on which some denominations are still unwill- 
ing to give ground, despite a measure of liber- 
ality on the part of a minority within the 
churches in question. 

These difficulties indicate that the strength 
of the movement for united churches, while not 
insignificant, is still far from universal. In 
Japan and Latin America denominationalism 
is at present strong. India, China, the Philip- 
pines and East Africa have a large body of 
Christians who want to see union. But in 
these countries too the difficulties previously 
mentioned are all operating against union. 

Methods suggested for union have been of 
two kinds, (1) local and provincial union, and 
(2) union of bodies of similar church polity. 
In India we have noted under the first kind 
of union that of the United Church of South 

175 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


India, and in China unions in Kuangtung, 
Fukien, Hupeh, and Kansu Provinces. Under 
the second type of union are the uniting of the 
Presbyterian bodies in Japan, China, Formosa, 
Chosen, and India, the union of the Anglican 
bodies in Japan and China, that of the Meth- 
odist bodies in Japan, and that of the Luther- 
ans in China. Beyond these in the growth of 
Christian unity, if they are consummated, will 
be the union of the Congregationalists, both 
English and American, and the Presbyterians 
of China and the union of the South India 
Church with the Church Missionary Society 
and the Mar Thoma Syrian Churches. 

Besides these are the alliance formed at 
Kikuyu in East Africa and the movement to- 
ward National Christian Councils in Japan, 
China, and India, which, though avowedly not 
looking toward organic union, are great fac- 
tors toward helping the churches to get to- 
gether and understand and respect one an- 
other. The great number of union institutions 
and other unions are also factors that will 
have a great bearing on the future. 

What reasonable hope is there then of union 
into national churches? It will not come to- 
morrow, but in most of the fields it is nearer 
than it was even five years ago. In China it 
is talked about since the 1922 Conference at 
Shanghai as never before. In India and 

176 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


Japan the present forming of the National 
Christian Councils is a great step forward, 
and the actual consummation of a National 
Christian Council in China is an even greater 
step. Union as yet is only a fond hope in many 
hearts. Those who seek shall find, however, 
and the ever-growing spirit of tolerance and 
Christian fellowship evidenced in many com- 
munions is being used of the Holy Spirit to 
bring about the day when still more far-reach- 
ing unions than have yet been seen shall be 
consummated. 


E. THe MISSIONARY’S RESPONSIBILITY 


What is the extent of the responsibility of 
the missionary for the ultimate form of indige- 
nous Christianity on the foreign mission 
fields? This is a question that has had many 
answers. The Roman Catholic, as already 
noted, holds that he is responsible for the 
whole teaching of the church as well as that of 
the New Testament. He would go so far as to 
make all church organization subject to the 
supreme authority of Rome, which, in the opin- 
ion of the writer, makes a church not indige- 
nous but imperial. Many Protestant mission- 
aries have attempted to teach as essentials the 
doctrines of their church. Most have pro- 
ceeded on the assumption that their particular 
form of church government and organization 

177 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


was suited for every age and circumstance. 
In discipline too many missionaries have tried 
to apply the one they have been brought up on. 
In esthetic appreciation and expression also 
most have brought to the field their accustomed 
type; in music, ritual, architecture, and other 
matters no place has been given in most fields 
for national expression. A great many mis- 
sionaries in the past have seemed to proceed 
on the ground that everything native was 
heathenish and everything European and 
American, except whisky, was part and parcel 
of Christianity, even to nightshirts and the 
English language. 

The standpoint of the national has changed 
like a kaleidoscope. First he fought bitterly 
against everything foreign. Next he imitated 
everything foreign. Now he is discriminating. 
These changes in attitude indicate first an 
ignorant fear and scorn of the alien; then, see- 
ing the power of the foreigner and the useful- 
ness of his inventions, he tried to adopt them 
wholesale. The spirit of investigation next set 
him to appraising. He is now more or less 
ready to take what is of value, but he also real- 
izes that his own individuality and that of his 
eountry are in danger. The rise of national- 
ism throughout the world has made him set up 
his own heritage against that of the foreigner 
and he has come to a new conception of its 

178 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


value. The intelligent Christian to-day is ask- 
ing for a church that is not bound in any par- 
ticulars to follow American or European 
standards, but one that shall be strictly indige- 
nous. He is asking the missionary to leave his 
hands off these things and limit himself to the 
message of Christ. 

Under the caption of “Why an Indigenous 
Church?” (Chapter II) we have already indi- 
cated the fact that the most real response and 
the greatest development can come only 
through a truly indigenous form of Christian- 
ity. If the missionary is to be of help in this 
respect, he must take the attitude not of a 
dictator but that of an assistant. 

The task of the missionary is (1) to give 
the message, whether it be by preaching, by 
friendship, by teaching, by tract, or Bible or 
other book, by healing or by any other channel 
through which he can express the love of God 
in Christ; and (2) to develop leadership 
among the nationals by instructing, exhorting, 
advising, suggesting, praying with patience, 
hoping and believing that God will raise up 
leaders to carry on his work in his way; and 
(3) to lay upon the church its responsibility 
for carrying the message to neighbors near and 
far, for the development of a Christian system 
of education and its support, also a Christian 
literature, and for the care of the body as well 

179 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


as the mind and soul. As Doctor Laws, of the 
Scottish Livingstonia Mission, has well said, 
“The missionary should never do any work 
which the native worker is able to do for him- 
self.”! His task is to make the church realize 
its burden and to help it all he can to take up 
the cross and follow Christ. No missionary 
with a living evangel burning in his heart will 
ask for a greater task than this. It is a great 
pity that in the past so many missionaries 
have been side-tracked from this great work 
to take up the task of the divider of the inheri- 
tance or have served tables. Some will say 
that these duties are all a part of the task, and 
it is rightly said, but when such things have 
had to be done, the missionary should have 
been training nationals to take them over and 
he should have avoided as far as possible the 
assuming of any authority. In the mind of 
the missionary must be constantly the thought 
that the church must increase and he must 
decrease, and his actions should show that he 
is steadily increasing the power of the church 
and decreasing his own. 


F. THe RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INDIGENOUS 
CHURCH 
In the previous sections has been described 


*World Missionary Conference, Commission I, p. 338. 
Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission. 


180 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


the responsibility of the churches for many 
things that the missionary has often carried 
himself, to the exhaustion of body and mind, 
support and government and many other tasks 
that are clearly the tasks of the church. The 
missionary has felt that the nationals were not 
able to carry the load. The nationals them- 
selves too, before being awakened from the 
sleep of centuries of inertia and dependence, 
were convinced of their inability. 

In the light of this situation one of the 
most encouraging signs of our times is the 
recognition by national and missionary alike 
that the task of evangelizing any country 
must be undertaken by the nationals them- 
selves—that it is the task of the church. It 
is a task in which the missionary will be al- 
lowed to help, but in which he will not be 
the leader. His position of leadership in evan- 
gelistic work has recently passed in Japan. In 
many organizations in other lands too the 
leadership in evangelistic work has passed to 
the church. The same applies to missionary 
work. The move is to unite all under the care 
of the church. With the church getting under 
this burden her future usefulness is assured. 

One of the most successful methods of 
indigenous evangelism has been employed in 
central Shansi and northern Shensi Provinces 
of China. A brief description of the method is 

181 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


all that can be given here. A fuller account is 
found in the 1919 China Mission Year Book, 
pp. 109ff. The plan is as follows: Two Chris- 
tians arrive at a town incognito. They put up 
at an inn. They next make the acquaintance 
of two or three of the leading men of the place 
and gradually introduce to them the subject 
of Christianity. When they have won them, 
they suggest getting a hall for the public pres- 
entation of Christianity. The people see 
reputable men connected with the new work, 
so that opposition is practically nil. After a 
time the missionary comes and calls. When 
the work is well established, then the local 
people are encouraged to go and carry out the 
Same program in another place. This en- 
courages indigenous leadership, removes prej- 
udice, opposition, and persecution and does 
the work at small expense. By placing the 
work in the hands of the Chinese in this way 
and laying upon them the responsibility, a 
strong church is being developed. 

Africa, India, China, Chosen, the Philip- 
pines, and other fields have shown forms of 
spontaneous but effective evangelism, some of 
which we have noted, but with scientific 
methods and common sense at her disposal in 
accord with Jesus’ words “Be ye wise as 
serpents,” the church ought in our day to work 
some definite plan in evangelism as that de- 

182 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


scribed above. It is a task that requires the 
most astute mental effort as well as the deep- 
est, most self-sacrificing consecration, baptized 
in the Holy Spirit. 

In education and the production of Chris- 
tian literature the transfer is slower. The 
evangel is simple, but modern education is a 
complicated matter, and the development of a 
literature is a task that takes maturity in the 
Christian life. But the church must under- 
take, or, rather, the missionary must show 
the church that it must, the work of education, 
authorship, and publication. Reports from 
every land tell of the foreign missionary 
leadership in education and literature. As yet 
the nationals have done but little and the 
churches have been quite content to let the 
mission boards finance, produce, and super- 
intend. This is said in the large. There are 
exceptions. The church should, as in Western 
lands, control these matters rather than let 
foreigners do it. The great mass of literature, 
textbooks, tracts, devotional books, ete., are 
translations or the product of Westerners. 
Bibles bear the imprint of foreign societies. 
We are a long way from indigenous Chris- 
tianity in this part of the work. There are 
signs of the dawn, however; for in Japan na- 
tionals for some time have been producing 
Christian literature and in India and China 

183 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


a beginning has been made, but even in these 
countries the help of the foreigners will be 
needed for some time yet; and in Africa and 
other fields where the life of the people is more 
primitive than in the three Asiatic countries 
above mentioned, the nationals will have to be 
in training for some time before they can 
arrive even at the early stage reached by the 
Christians in those countries. 

In institutions for the relief of bodily ail- 
ments the situation is about the same. In 
Japan entirely and in India to a large extent 
the government has undertaken this work; but 
in Africa, China, and many other fields there 
is still great scope for the development of this 
branch of the service. But the transfer to the 
church has not even begun to be made. To 
many it will seem strange to say that this is 
work that the church onght to be managing, 
as this type of institution is so distinctly for- 
eign in its management. But in the home 
lands we do not have foreigners in control. It 
must come in time that the nationals shall be 
in charge, and the sooner the missionary starts 
to talk about these institutions as belonging 
to the church and of their work as the work 
of the church, the sooner will come the time 
when the transfer will be made. 

What of the churches on the field in their 
relation to the country in which they are? 

184 


INDIGENOUS CHURCH PROBLEMS 


This question covers everything from govern- 
ment to social and industrial conditions. 
Already the church federations and national 
councils are giving out their pronouncements 
regarding working conditions in industry and 
their views on social questions. City unions 
of churches have done the same. Campaigns 
for better sanitary conditions, social ideals, 
etc., have enlisted the support of the Young 
Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
ciations and the churches. Definite results 
have been accomplished, in Osaka, Japan, in 
the limiting of vice, and in Canton, China, in 
stopping gambling. In this connection there 
is the great task of adapting national customs 
to Christian ends, filling them with Christian 
meaning. A beginning has been made in some 
quarters. <A particular instance is the work 
of the Wesley Methodist Church, of Tientsin, 
China, where a wealthy Chinese Christian is 
financing the organization of a society for 
adapting funeral and wedding ceremonies, pre- 
serving their Chinese character, yet making 
them Christian in spirit, and striving for 
higher ideals in the family. In India and 
Japan as well as in China there is a very 
strong sentiment among the educated Chris- 
tians for the preservation of features of the 
national life. It would seem that in these 
countries at least the missionaries could safely 
185 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


leave these matters to the churches, render- 
ing aid or giving advice when asked. 

When we consider the churches of the dif- 
ferent countries in their international rela- 
tions, we see a great task ahead of them. In 
the countries of Europe, Christianity, though 
supposedly at the helm, was unable to stave 
off the Great War. The bond that united 
Christianity was insufficient to check the na- 
tions in their mad fury. Will the churches on 
the mission fields unite so strongly in interna- 
tional fellowship that they will be able to 
prevent a repetition of that awful cataclysm? 
Strained relations of a few years ago that led 
to the refusal of the Chinese churches to send 
delegates to Japan to the World Sunday 
School Convention in Tokyo have been healed 
over. This, the most outstanding break on the 
mission field, has changed for an ever more 
cordial feeling between the Christians of the 
two countries. The National Councils have a 
splendid opportunity in this field to cement 
international friendship. 


186 


CHAPTER V 
CONCLUSION 


CHRISTIAN character is the objective of all 
missionary work. We want the world filled 
with people who live the Christ life. But the 
finest Christian character is developed not in 
solitude but in social contacts. Christianity 
is nothing if not a social religion. Jesus, the 
founder, was supremely interested in people. 
He spent the greater part of his time with 
them, and it was in them that he placed his 
hopes. “But where there is no vision the peo- 
ple perish.” 

Jesus prayed all night before selecting the 
men who were to be the leaders of his fol- 
lowers, for he knew that true leadership has 
the vision that keeps the people from perish- 
ing. From the way Jesus worked with these 
future leaders, we can see that he was 
thoroughly convinced that his training of them 
was allimportant. He sought to perfect them, 
that they might truly represent him when he 
must leave them. And to-day, much as the 
missionary sometimes feels he needs money, it 
is quite safe to say that any missionary would 

187 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


rate a consecrated worker of ability above any 
amount of money. 

We would then place first of all to-day the 
training of more leaders. This is the great 
task in the raising up of an indigenous church. 
We must have men filled with the power of 
the Holy Spirit, men who have the balance of 
a well-rounded education, men who have inde- 
pendence of spirit, initiative, self-respect, men 
who are unreservedly committed to the task 
of creating churches worthy of the Christ who 
gave himself for them and “ever liveth to make 
intercession” for them. To assist in the train- 
ing up of a larger body of such men and 
women is the main task before the missionary ; 
for, sooner or later, to them must be committed 
the burden the missionary has carried. 

As we have tried to show, this task is not 
one of handing over any mass of doctrine, nor 
one that requires any show of authority of an 
external nature, but the living of the life of 
Christ by the missionary and his helpful, sym- 
pathetic cooperation. Nothing can be suc- 
cessfully forced upon those who have arrived 
at years of discretion. Far more can be ac- 
complished by the practice of love than by the 
use of authority. Authority may coerce, but, 
when removed, a reaction is sure to follow. 
Love, on the other hand, compels with the con- 
sent of the loved. The churches on the fields 

188 


CONCLUSION 


will have the advantage of a running start 
when the missionary is no longer needed, if 
they are given the place of responsibility and 
encouraged to take control of their own affairs. 

The future of the churches in the fields, 
judging from the signs of a sense of respon- 
sibility among the churches, particularly 
among the leaders, is bright. These leaders 
have, many of them, an aspiration to make 
their Christianity so national that it may not 
only get into the hearts of their people, but 
may also develop, because indigenous, a more 
real Christianity; that is, one truer to Christ, 
and one that shall in that power contribute 
to the world something that shall be both 
original and a boon to mankind. There is ex- 
cellent prospect for the fulfillment of this long- 
ing. Jesus himself was an Oriental, and his 
religion, brought back into that environment 
of the Orient after centuries of banishment to 
the Occident, where his teachings have often 
been sadly warped and sadly neglected, 
though accepted in a measure, should shine 
forth with a new radiance in the lives of the 
people of the East and those of Africa, who 
with the people of India possess such deeply 
religious natures. With all that science has 
brought us, with the present longing for a 
world-wide Christian unity, with the experi- 
ence of the church, mistakes surely ought to 

189 


NATIVE CHURCHES IN FOREIGN FIELDS 


be at a minimum, and these new children of 
the Father can reasonably look forward to a 
remarkable growth in the Lord Jesus. 

As to the character of the church, unless all 
present signs fail, it is going to be indigenous. 
These are days of democracy and nationalism. 
With all due respect to the Roman Catholie 
followers of Christ and with the greatest ad- 
miration for the devotion of their missionaries, 
one cannot but feel that in our day their ideal 
of a great imperial church is out of date. 
Though such a system as that of our Catholic 
friends has a hold and will continue to have a 
hold for some time to come upon large numbers 
of people, the handwriting on the wall, already 
seen in Europe and in Latin America in the 
attitude of the educated men, shows clearly 
which type of Christianity is going to count 
for the most in the future for the betterment 
of the whole world. 

It is full time for all of the Protestant mis- 
sionaries, who with the Roman Catholic are 
not consciously striving to build up indige- 
nous churches, to look the mission fields over 
carefully and see what our brothers and sisters 
of these fields have been doing. They are 
proving themselves our equals and sometimes 
our superiors in the Christian life. Let us 
give them the right hand of fellowship. Let 
us treat them no longer as children, but as 

190 


CONCLUSION 


brothers and sisters in Christ. In racial and 
national distinctions we must still abide; their 
customs are not ours, their standards are not 
ours; but let us not expect of them what they 
have not a right to expect of us. If we treat 
them as different socially, we should yet treat 
them as our equals socially. Their rights are 
as precious as ours, and it is due to them as 
Christian brothers and sisters that they be 
respected. The same God made us all. The 
same Christ died for us all, and in him there 
is neither bond nor free, but all one creature. 

The church that is built up upon this basis 
instead of upon patronage, will become a self- 
respecting church just as our churches in 
Western lands are. God will raise up leaders 
as he has ever done in the church and his 
power will be the guiding hand. The broad- 
minded leadership of Christian statesmen, 
theirs and ours, we trust may some day unite 
all Christendom, yes, all the world, in one 
great church Universal. 


“City of God, how broad and far 
Outspread thy walls sublime! 
The true thy chartered freemen are, 
Of every age and clime.” 
—Samuel Johnson. 


191 


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199 


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